Beyond the Looking Glass
by shinigamiinochi
Summary: Heero and his friends go to a haunted mansion for a project, but when Quatre and Heero start to have visions of a ghost in a blood stained kimono, things turn very bad for them.
1. Prelude

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: It's October, which is horror month, so I came up with this as a tribute. As I've noted in my profiles, I'm a horror freak and I love anything that is creepy, and maybe a little bit wrong. First off, I'd like to say that this was partially inspired by the Fatal Frame games and deals a lot with ritual and the distortion of time. Secondly, no character is safe in this fic, and I mean nobody. Anyone can die or lose their sanity. Nearly all of them will do terrible things to themselves and each other. It's dark and depressing, and maybe a little bit twisted. Happy Halloween!

Pairings: 1x2, 3x2, 5+Meiran, Relena+1, 13x11, slight Hilde+2, Father MaxwellxSister Helen, RalphxChris.

Warnings: Death, AU, OOC, gore, violence, language, lemon, yaoi, het, ghosts, screwed up time, flashbacks, mutilations, cannibalism, dark.

Summary: Heero and his friends Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, Relena, and Zechs must do a project on their town's history. Relena suggests that they go to the Matsuei Mansion, a huge building that is known to be haunted and has been standing in their town for as long as anyone can remember. It seems like a good idea at first, a bunch of friends spending their holiday week off in an ancient, beautiful mansion, but when Quatre and Heero start to have visions of a ghost in a blood stained kimono, things go horribly wrong.

Prelude: The Beginning

_Excerpts from the journal of Professor G_____, found by officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:_

September 26, 2003

After many hours of preparing, my colleagues and I are finally on the road to Nasue, a small rural village on the northern coast of Japan. It has been thirteen long years since I started by career in the area of paranormal research, but this is the first time my friends and I will be able to put our theories to practice. It is very exciting, even as our old rental car, packed to the brim with supplies and equipment, journeys through the rocky, forest paths towards the huge mansion that I can see now, just over the horizon. The town cannot truly be called a village anymore as it is just as advanced as Tokyo, though much smaller and more… intimate. Still, when we arrived in Nasue this morning, it felt like we had taken a step through time. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Everyone in this field has reasons for being here, experiences as a child, superstitious parents, perhaps, but I know that I am taking this long journey from England to Japan because of my natural curiosity. I had always had a deep interest in monsters and specters as a child and I had never been a non-believer. I, like any self-respecting scientist, have a healthy attitude towards disbelief, but I also have an open mind, unlike my colleague J who is sitting in the front seat, a death grip on his precious lap top. We have been struggling for years to try to take a trip such as this. It seems that men such as us can only exist as professors, teaching children while our dreams and aspirations rot in the corner of our minds, but after many, many years of pleading, the university has allowed us to go, if only to laugh at us when we return, tails between our legs. There had been much argument where we should go, but in my mind at least, the Matsuei Mansion was the only fitting place for our expedition.

Some say that Japan is the most haunted place on earth, with its clinging to old traditions and ritual, the Shinto temples that line any rural path and the superstition that many of its people still practice. That is certainly true here in Nasue, as many people shy away from us and become tight lipped at the mere mention of where we are going. Some make old signs at us and one kind old lady even gave H a good luck charm. Such fear and superstition is not odd in the fields that we study, but it still makes me nervous. S offered to look at the supposed 'World's Most Haunted Places' list for our destination, but I suggested something a little bit more… mature. It is true, in this day and age the term 'paranormal research' is usually saved for TV shows where shaky cameras follow hosts as they run around old castles as they scream and claim that they are being chased by some unseen specter. People like us are a dying breed, but I refuse to debase myself to the title of 'primetime entertainment'. The Matsuei Mansion will never make that list for a very simple reason. It has never been successfully labeled as 'haunted'. There is no proof simply because people become 'spirited away' when they go to that place. They disappear, or show up dead. It seems like the typical ghost story; "In Japan there stands a mansion where many have died and it is assumed to be haunted. All who enter the house die or disappear," only, that isn't quite the truth. Some die, some disappear, but others simply go mad just by entering the place. Of course, there are still doubts, as there always are in legends such as these, though there is some oddness about the legend. People will disappear in the region, then reappear days later horribly mutilated. There are stories like this all around the world, but there is something about that place that scares all of us, even J, though he refuses to admit it. Paranormal research itself is not a lucrative field. In this, you are either mocked or ignored, but there is some fun in it. In all of my years of teaching, I had never left England, but here I was in Japan and I have to admit, it is a beautiful place.

The road leading to the huge mansion rocked the car and J swore as he was jostled. It was obvious that the dirt, forest road was rarely used anymore and the car struggled up it. J, H, S, O, and I have been working together for the past ten years. I, personally, study the energy force given off by paranormal events. It is an odd thing to believe, but paranormal energy, if examined and somehow harnessed, could be used as a replacement for electricity and fuel. It is a private theory of mine, but one that is hard to prove. H is more impressed by the psychological element that seems to follow these events. He thinks that there are some people who are more susceptible to paranormal events due to psychic frequencies. S used to be a mechanic and is very interested in the paranormal influence on man made appliances and metal. O studies the affects that supernatural events can have on the physical body while our skeptical friend J is more concerned with the science behind paranormal research. If one of us can find one thing, one… spark, I would consider this long trip worth while.

The house looms through the trees, sending a chill down my spine. If I squint, I can see a shadowy figure in one of the wood barred windows, but I am sure that it is just my over expecting imagination.

End Prelude

There's 6 'teasers' and a prologue before we get into the main story with the guys.


	2. Teaser 1: Mirrors

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: This fic is also a sort of reflection (no pun intended) of the fears that I had as a child. Mirrors scared the shit out of me. To this day, I cover mirrors up in my dorm room. I guess I took that 'gateway to hell' thing too seriously. Well, mirrors are just… creepy. I feel the same with spiders, spirals, and vines. Open windows at night also creeped me out because of that stupid scarecrow Goosebumps book. Oh, and open closets. I still have yet to get over these things .

Teaser 1: Mirrors

_Excerpts from the journal of Professor G_____, found by Officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:_

September 27, 2003

We set up the equipment in various rooms of the mansions successfully. This place truly is massive, so we kept to only a few rooms to keep from being overwhelmed. It is a beautiful old house, but is so big and everything seems to echo in here. The first thing that we noticed when we entered the mansion through the huge doors was the amount of mirrors in this place. Considering the state at which the previous owners left this mansion, it is odd to note that none of these mirrors are covered. Something of interest to note is that many of the people we interviewed about this mansion called this place 'The Mirror House', and I can see why. There are many rituals and superstitions revolving around mirrors in this region. All over the world, mirrors hold a strong significance in the supernatural. Mirrors are said to be a reflection of the soul. If you looked into a mirror, you could see your inner self. Some believe that that is why it was considered bad luck to break a mirror. Mirrors cannot lie, they can only show the truth. So, if there is something missing from the mirror's reflection, this is seen as a truly bad sign and the likewise is obviously true as well. H jokingly said that it was a very good thing that everything was as it should be when we passed a full length mirror on the entrance wall.

Even in the United States, people were overwhelmed by the power of mirrors. During a wake or funeral, all of the mirrors were covered because it was believed that the person's soul would become trapped forever in the mirror. It was for this reason that we assumed the mirrors would be covered in this house since the last owner's son died here before they left, but I suppose that one of the other visitors might have taken the cloths off. They say that if you cannot see your reflection than that means you have lost your soul.

All of our reflections are here as I sit here, watching the equipment. The tatami underneath me feel oddly comfortable considering that they are quite old and not as sturdy as they once were. Vines grow everywhere, looking like ancient, spiny snakes with small, bright red flowers, looking like spots of blood. However, something troubles me. Last night, I was awaken by the sweet chime of a bell. It sounded so beautiful, yet, oddly, so sad. I had turned on my side and my eyes met the mirror. Even though I was snug in my sleeping bag, my compatriots sleeping next to me in their, I felt a very strong chill going down my spine. In the mirror was a figure dressed in what looked like a pure white kimono, looking down on me as I slept, but when I blinked, the image was gone. Was it just a dream, my imagination, perhaps? I'm not sure, but the equipment did not read anything, so I will brush it off as nothing for now. Tomorrow we will go upstairs and check those rooms with our equipment.

September 28, 2003

There is one mirror legend that scares me to death in this place. Some consider mirrors to be a gateway to other worlds, hell, darkness; mirrors are a way for ghosts and demons to pass through. Yesterday, I would have laughed at that, but now… I'm not so sure. H told me that he saw something in one of the mirrors upstairs. He heard the sweet chime of a bell and a glimpse of a reddish kimono. Was that the same thing I saw? Why did he see red when I saw white? I would have not given it much credence if not for the equipment in that room. At the time that H saw the apparition, the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees and the energy reading spiked, as though the room was red hot with electricity. There is no electricity in this place. J scoffed at all of this, predictably, but I can't get the sound of that bell out of my mind. It scorched into me like a brand. Tonight I put my jacket over the mirror, but it didn't make me feel any safer.

End Teaser 1


	3. Teaser 2: Ghosts

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: At least the teasers are going pretty fast.

Teaser 2: Ghosts

_Excerpts from the journal of Professor G______, found by Officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:_

September 29, 2003

Ghosts… it is the apparition of someone who has died… they look the same as them and are connected to the places where they lived and died, sometimes living in the things that they had loved or died in. However, there is also a belief that ghosts are demons. Demons… a few days ago, I would have said that such things were impossible, but after tonight, I'm not so sure anymore. I had believed that paranormal events could create energy. If that is true, then it has become true that that energy can do anything. Some say that a ghost is just a replay of that person's death, so what is this one telling me.

I'm getting ahead of myself again. Tonight we continued to explore the mansion. So far, we have been very pleased with the results of our findings. Certain rooms give off strong energy readings. J believes that their might be power lines somewhere in the house, but that seems unlikely to me. I slept well the night before and thought that perhaps H and I had had a shared delusion. However, tonight S and I went to check out the Hanging Hallway. There are no mirrors there, which is strange considering the rest house has them. I heard the chime of the bell, but when S asked me about it, I realized that it was not my imagination. There was a flash of white behind us when we walked down the achingly long hallway. It was S that spun around, but it had disappeared. We heard a high pitched sound immediately after that. To me, it sounded like a child screaming, but S wasn't so convinced. He became very excited after that, saying that he believed the 'ghost' had indeed found a way to communicate through some electrical currents. I do not believe that this is the case.

I was walking back to the room we have claimed as our own when I heard the floorboards creak behind me. I do not know what to think of these things anymore, it makes me feel like I am going mad, but still I turned around. There was nothing there, but I could have sworn that I felt soft hair brush my shoulder as I turned. O and J think that we are being childish, but J looks very unsettled. I will have to look out for him.

September 30, 2003

I am sure that there is something following me around this place. It chases me from mirror to mirror; the flash of white, the chime of a bell… is it really a ghost? Why is it haunting us? Who's ghost is it? And why is it now that our equipment is spiking so severely? H wants to leave, he is scared, but J calls him a moron, that we are doing too well to leave. As scared as I am of the haunting figure, I have to agree. In the days I have been here, I have gathered more data than in my entire lifetime! To think, this place is really haunted! I have uncovered the mirror. I hope that this spirit will learn to trust me and show his or her face. The air is cold now and we have gathered our clothes to create warmth. J is attached to his computer again. I hear a voice in the back of my head, begging for relief of the darkness. J still does not believe that there is a ghost here, but he refuses to leave and he has become excited, almost frantic. I wonder how one lures out a ghost? I wonder if I want to…

End Teaser 2


	4. Teaser 3: The Mansion

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: I made a mistake on the pairings on the first chapter, it's 3x4, not 3x2. Freudian slip and all that. Now G's going to talk about the history of the mansion and its many rooms.

Teaser 3: The Mansion

_Excerpts from the journal of Professor G_____, found by officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:_

October 2, 2003

A lot has happened in the last couple of days. Our equipment is going haywire and we are now seeing that figure in almost ever mirror. Can they not leave the mirror? Are they trapped there? H is terrified of the spirit, but it hasn't done anything more than watch us. It seems friendly enough, simply following us around like a lost puppy dog. I can't help but think of it as 'our' ghost, if that is what it is and I am still not convinced. It could be a psychic echo, like H thinks. J still believes that it is all in our minds, but he didn't sleep last night and I can tell he is even more afraid than O or H. O doesn't sleep so well anymore and he has developed a cough, probably because of the dry air up here. I offered to go back into the village to get him some medicine, but J said that would destroy the experiment. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's just as obsessed with out mirror visitor as H and S are. Right now I am pouring over the notes we originally took on the mansion. When we had first arrived, we had thought that we might witness something, a small spark, but now, our expectations have been met and surpassed. I can't help but think of the people that have died in this place, though. I do not think the mirror ghost killed them, it seems unlikely since we are still alive, unless it is just playing with us, like a cat with a mouse, before we are devoured, but there is something about that sad chiming of the bell that makes me not want to believe that. That bell makes me feel so lost, I want to help the mirror ghost, but I can't until I find out who it is and what it wants.

The Matsuei Mansion certainly has a rich history. It was built sometime in the fourteen hundreds as a place of Shinto worship, back then it had no name and, according to several folklorist journals, it was a crime to speak of it in the village. I am not sure specifically why, but it appears that some Priests were keeping the villagers away and called it a 'sacred place' at the same time their actions showed some fear. In 1432, there was a terrible occurrence, a sketchy witness report claims that there was some sort of explosion in the village which caused the deaths of everyone who lived there and that explosion had originated from this mansion. That seems unlikely, however, since the place remained intact. Yet, even the people in this place died. There is no doubt of that since there are more detailed reports about the state of the bodies and how they were literally ripped to shreds. Until 1575, the temple remained untouched, legends of a curse keeping everyone away. In 1575, the Matsuei family laid claim to the temple and turned it into a home. The family was massive, their origins reaching from England to Russia to Japan. People in the village whispered about them, calling them mixed blood, but they were also afraid of the power that the Matsuei held. The head of the family was a man named Hirotaka, a very rich, powerful man, who, in his later years, became quite insane from dementia, though the people in the village seem to think it was the house and not a mental illness. No one knows why, but Hirotaka fell to the same fate as the priests and holed up in the mansion, never coming to the village, his family sending servants for their supplies. There are rumors that he continued the work of the Shinto priests after finding something in the house. Up until 1897, the Matsuei lived in the house, generation after generation, isolated in that place, until the head of the house, a third Japanese, third American, third German man, lost his son for some reason and he and the rest of the family left for Germany. Even when the Matsuei had occupied the mansion, there had been many deaths there. The peculiar thing is the number of deaths, 67 people in eleven years and the last to die in that year was always a member of the Matsuei family. Ritual sacrifice comes to mind in this case. Just to calculate is a terrifying thing: from 1575 to 1897, that is a 322 year span, over two thousand people had died in that place or disappeared after visiting there. The sick thing is that the 67th person was always a child. Such a thing… I cannot even begin to comprehend it. To think that the thing stalking us could be one of those children makes me want to weep. Since the Matsuei have left, there have been over three hundred deaths and disappearances.

As I have said before, this mansion is massive and it is unclear which rooms existed in the temple and which were built later when this place was converted into a home. There are many rooms since the entire Matsuei line lived here together. Many of these rooms seem to have a certain purpose, though what that could be, I am not prepared to speculate, and several of these rooms aren't even on the house plans! Through gossip alone, there is talk that there is a secret room underneath this place that had been built by the Shinto priests. However, this is not on the plans, but that means nothing to me. The long hallway of ropes is not on those plans, either. It is a huge stretch of hallway, spanning two miles and seems to go on forever when you are walking it. From the rafters, hundreds of ropes are hung. There lays some truth behind our theory of ritual sacrifice in this place and there are both legends and journals from folklorists saying that sacrifices of the old Shinto order would hang the sacrifices from those ropes for ten days.

There is an old well in the courtyard. The courtyard itself is quite beautiful with wild cherry trees and more of those strange vines with red flowers. The well is indeed an old, stone thing and has long since dried up. Legend says that the sacrifices were buried in a secret passageway that connects to the bottom of that well and their graves were marked by hundreds of pinwheels that turned even in the stillness. It was probably ritual for the priests to empty the water when they buried their sacrifices, but if such a place exists, we do not wish to search for it, since the trip down the well is a long one, especially in the darkness and it looks treacherous. The scratches along the inner walls of the well are a testament to that. It looks like some poor soul fell down there at one point.

On the first floor of the mansion is a huge room with tatami mats that have dark stains on them. When we found this room, H believed, and still does, that there was a massacre in there and the stains are old blood. I am not so sure, but the idea frightens me. When we explored the second floor bedrooms, I found a peculiar thing in one of them. There are several stone locks to secret rooms and some we have managed to solve. One of these 'passageways' led to a third floor and a room above the bedroom. It was a cell, hard wood creating a prison with only small gaps to see out of and no windows. J believed that at one point the house served as a place to store prisoners of the village, but when we opened it up, we found dolls and drawings and toys and books, not advanced enough for an adult. The idea that children were once sacrificed in this place returned to me and I had to leave the cell immediately.

Yesterday we explored the head of mansion's old room. It is a large bedroom filled with beautiful red paper lanterns and a large mirror. It was an opulent room, fitting for someone with great wealth and I imagined how beautiful it would look with the lanterns lit, but didn't dare waste our lighters. On the second floor was a room that, oddly, had small wooden dolls with red and black dyed straw for hair that had ropes tied around their necks and were hanging from the ceiling. However, that is not the strangest thing about this room, there is also the matter of the side wall. The entire mansion, considering the era of which it was built, is made of stone and wood, not metal. The wall no longer truly exists; it has been blown back, the supports curled outward like the teeth of a tremendous mouth. It was that that struck me as strange, a force that could curl wood in that way. However, when I asked J about it, he informed me that no force in the scientific world could bend but not break wood. I wonder if a ghost did that, but it seems so… violent.

End Teaser 3

The next teasers are Ritual, Shrine Maidens, and The End. Then I'll have a prologue, then finally, the boys will come in. I don't think that this story will be too long. I want it to be thirteen chapters, but I doubt it.


	5. Teaser 4: Ritual

Beyond the Looking Glass

Teaser 4: Ritual

_Excerpts from the journal of Professor G_____, found by officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:_

October 4, 2003

For many years, there have been legends and rumors of the rituals that the masters of the Matsuei family have performed. However, when we asked around the village, people either pledged ignorance on the topic or simply ignored us. There was fear on the face of every person we asked. What could possibly be so scary about something that happened over a hundred years ago? If it happened at all? People refused to speak to us after we asked that question, everyone except for one woman. We could tell that she was in need of money, sitting on a street corner with her four young children, peddling some handmade pottery. After giving her 5,000 yen from my own pocket money, she was more than willing to talk to us. J rolled his eyes at my charity, muttering under his breath about my softness for women and children. I didn't correct him because it was true. I don't have a family of my own and the sight of her hungry children struck me in the heart. Perhaps that is why the idea that the mirror ghost is a child is so painful to me?

The woman was fairly old and the children were in fact her grandchildren and her daughter and son in law had died a few years ago. Without a job, it was difficult for her to take care of the children, but she was trying. As a child, her own grandmother had told her one of the stories of their village. The whole thing sounded so fantastical that even I was skeptical to its validity. J told me later that he believed that the woman was senile, but I have no doubt that she believed it to be the truth. Apparently, many, many years ago, there was a sacred ritual to appease something that she referred to as 'The Darkness.' According to her, the Darkness was the greatest evil in the world. It was evil, fear, and death. The Darkness can consume a person and become like a parasite, feeding off the negative emotions of everyone it comes in contact with and killing every living thing. The ritual had been started after the death of the Shinto priests of so long ago by the Matsuei family master. The woman said that her grandmother thought that the priests had found a gateway to the Darkness, but had been unsuccessful in sealing it off, which had resulted in the death of everyone in the village. Rituals have been a part of the culture of Japan for a very long time, but the nature of this so-called 'Mirror Ritual' freezes my blood and I know that my friends feel the same. J appeared even shakier after hearing the following story.

Every eleven years, in 98 concurrent days, 66 people must be brought in front of the Sacred Mirror and killed. On the 99th day, a Shrine Maiden that has been raised specifically for this purpose, must shatter the mirror and use it to cut up her body, then be strangled by their mother or father or other member of the family. In death, the Shrine Maiden will take the Darkness inside of her body as both the Darkness and the Shrine Maiden will be contained within the shards of mirror. The parent or other member of the family will put the shards back together and the Shrine Maiden's spirit will seal the mirror, which is the gate to the world of Darkness, keeping it from entering our world for another eleven years. The Shrine Maiden will live in the Darkness, with the power of all of the Shrine Maidens before her, for the rest of existence, keeping the Darkness from pouring out of the mirror. The woman also told us that if the ritual is broken, the Darkness can fracture the Shrine Maiden's soul. This can also happen if the Shrine Maiden's soul is in turmoil with itself. J could barely contain his laughter at the story, but both he and O look disturbed.

Tonight I lie in my sleeping bag, staring at the mirror in the room, and think of that legend. I have heard of many cruel things in my life, but to think that a man would raise a child like it was cattle, just for the mere purpose of killing her… it is such a horrible thing… Superstition truly is the root of fear and, dare I say it, evil. I wonder where they got the 66 other sacrifices… the death regards are concurrent with the legend and I don't doubt that the ritual existed at one point, but I do not believe in any such 'Darkness', only the evil that comes from the hearts of men. Perhaps the spirit in the mirror is one of the unfortunate souls that was kidnapped and killed or… could it be a young girl that had been a part of this mansion's family? I cannot imagine the sort of terrible mentality that would create such a ritual. What was it that the Shinto priests found anyway? It was probably the same old age old fear of mirrors.

I continue to watch the mirror, hoping I will see our mystery visitor when I feel a strange touch on my shoulder. I tell O to mind his space when I heard it.

"I'm waiting."

End Teaser 4


	6. Teaser 5: The End

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: I've decided to combine the fifth and sixth teaser. The next chapter will be a short prologue, then we'll be into the main story.

Teaser 5: The End

_Excerpts from the journal of Professor G_____, found by Officer Takanawa at the Matsuei Mansion on October 13, 2003:_

October 5, 2003

Shrine Maidens, called 'Miko' here in Japan, still exist today as female helpers at shrines, but many years ago, they had another purpose. 'Miko' were women that could see things, prophets, shamaness', mediums, they were oracles, sacred virgins. In ancient times, these women would go into deep trances and give prophecies. However, as time went on, miko became the daughters of the head Priest, and they mostly performed ritual dances and helped in ceremonies. Nowadays, Shrine Maidens are employees or volunteers of shrines, but a long time ago, they were virgins with sacred powers and always female. It is because of this that the names of those that died on the 99th day confuse me. If all of those that were sacrificed on that day were Shrine Maidens and therefore female, why are there male names on that list and why, on some of the scraps of journal that we managed to scrounge up from previous members of the Matsuei family, were some of males of the family also called Shrine Maidens? Apparently, the family was not discriminate in their choices of sacrifice which raises a lot of questions in my mind. If it is not specifically the Shrine Maiden that is important, maybe it is the child of the head of the family, which does seem to be the case.

Everything is going so wrong. I try to delve myself into my research, ignoring the states of my colleagues, but now it is impossible. The equipment has stopped working, or rather, they pick up nothing, even the things that our eyes are seeing. Is it mass hysteria? Are we all going mad? O is very, very sick, he coughs nonstop and sleeps most of the day and I fear that it has become something that we will not be able to stop. He is so pale and shakes. J spends all day on the computer, going over old data and muttering constantly. S and H spend their days wandering the mansion while I watch the mirrors. I can feel madness creeping up on me. I can see the figure in the corner of my eyes, but it always disappears when I turn around. At night, I can hear it whispering at me.

"I'm waiting."

It's always the same. What are you waiting for, little one? Why won't you show yourself? I can't help you unless you speak to me!

October 9, 2003

Why did I wish for such a thing? Surely, I have doomed us all! They're all gone now… I saw it, in the mirror. Not just a flash of white this time and now I know why one of us saw red and another white….

My fears have been confirmed, it is a child. I cannot discover the being's gender since the child is so young, seven or eight, I think. The spirit wears a pure white, sleeveless kimono, but it is stained with bright red blood in some places and I can see why. It's skin is snowy pale, but across that skin are huge cuts, forever bleeding, the being's form terribly mutilated. There is a terrible bruise on its neck, its hair hiding its face. There is a small bell on a red ribbon tied to the ghost's tiny ankle. But, the child is not alone. A few nights ago I saw another, dressed and looking the same, but older, about the age of a teenager. This ghost has huge… specters… protruding from the back, like terrible parasites, distorted, contorted, screaming horrors. We saw it in the mirrors, ALL of the mirrors, even in the reflection of our cameras. It reached for me inside of the mirror and I ran, my fear overpowering my actions. As bad I feel for the spirit, I AM afraid of it. But, tonight, something horrible happened. I saw the spirit again, but it was not inside of the mirror, it was _here_, walking among us! It walks on bare feet, but it is real, the floor creaking under the weight, like a living person, but when its bare skin touched the wood, it rotted, like death as a form of real energy! I was right! But, that all means nothing now. Cuts have started to form on our bodies. They itch and hurt so badly, bleeding profusely. Every day that passes, more and more appear, even though we stay wide awake in fear of what will happen.

We found an underground passageway under a broken tatami mat in the blood-stained room. It was a stone staircase leading down into the dark, supported by old wooden beams that looked like they would break at any minute. We found the door and I am sure that the room behind was the place of the mirror ritual, but we could not figure out the stone lock. Even J could not solve the puzzle and we gave up on it. I know now that that… child… is responsible for my friends' deaths. That's right, they are all dead and I am alone in this awful place.

O was the first to leave. He was so very sick. He had stopped eating and his body was just wasting away in front of my eyes, only, it happened in only a few days, which is, of course, impossible. He choked on his own blood, dying in his sleep. We put his body in the closet, unable to look at it. J finally conceded that we should leave the mansion, but to our utter shock, none of the doors would open. We are trapped here. So close to the mountains, our cell phones are useless. There is no way out.

J died shortly after O. After looking after the equipment and discovering that they have not recorded anything, he claims that all of this is a hoax, even O's death. He became obsessed with finding the thing in the mirror. He told me that he saw the child and then the teenager. After he saw that, he was never the same. He went… mad. I think that he realized the truth, that there was no way out and that we were all going to die in here. I found his body in the long hallway of ropes, hanging there. I think that he couldn't take the fear anymore and killed himself. Will the same happen to the rest of us? Or at least, that is what I had thought then, but now I know that losing my sanity is the least of my worries.

S once spoke to me how the mansion spoke at night and how the walls have started to rot. I told him that it was the spirit, but he is unsure of that. He has walked the mansion many times over and, before he died, he was convinced that the spirits and energies of this place were affecting metals and woods and even plants. We kept J's body in the hallway, hanging. I didn't see the point in taking him down, just to stash him in a closet, at least he is safe there. I found S there, next to J's body. He had taken down one of the ropes and was… bleeding on it. When I had demanded what he was doing, he told me that the ropes were soaking up his blood, like the feeding of a living organism. I watched in horror as he cut up his arm and the blood dripped onto the old rope, then… disappeared, like it had indeed been drunk by something. He continued to make cuts, enthralled with the sight of his bright red blood feeding into the ropes. I dragged him back to our room, but I was inattentive. He escaped me and returned to the hallway, slicing open his flesh and feeding the ropes until there was nothing left to bleed. When I found him, it was in bits and pieces. A foot and arm and head here and there, tangled in individual ropes like toy doll in a spider's web. I could not bear to untangle him.

I returned to our room to find that, not only was H missing, but O's body as well. I do not know why I thought to do so, but I began running to that hallway and I could only stare in complete horror at the sight of my friends, all of them, dead and hanging there. H was there, too, his eyes still bleeding, but quite dead, as if he had had some sort of aneurism. I have gone mad… haven't I, my friends? I'm sure that I am insane…

I am sitting in front of the mirror in our room again. I couldn't bare to be in that horrible hallway with my dead friends. What is happening here? Did that child really do this? I am waiting for that child. It will come for me tonight, I am sure. Come for me little one… I cannot take the darkness anymore. I cannot take the voices. I cannot take the loneliness… I am waiting…

It came.

End Teaser 5


	7. Prologue

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: And the craziness continues with the Prologue. I'll be working on the first chapter reeeeeal soon. To answer some questions: 'Matsuei' is very relevant, but I doubt many people will get it until I disclose who the main ghost is, but it should be pretty obvious. Heero and the gang haven't shown up at the mansion yet. They show up after the scientists, way after. That's one of the reasons for the dates, so I don't end up confusing people with my total disregard for linear events. Also, a couple of people are confused about 'The Darkness'. Anyone who has played Fatal Frame will understand this, but in each game there is a 'Darkness' that kills everything that it touches. It sort of generic term for the most evil thing you can imagine. There is no male version of Shrine Maiden, so I didn't bother trying to come up with another term for it. Shrine Maiden is just fine. I'm sorry if any of this is culturally incorrect for Japan, I'm just going on my own basic knowledge. I have also decided to turn this story into an original work and make it my Nanowrimo project this year.

Prologue: Hide and Seek

_It… hurts. It hurts so… much… the blood… darkness… you… betrayed me… Why..? You'll know my pain… you'll all know it… the world will hurt… You'll all hurt… _

_Please… I'm so scared… the dark… the Darkness… I know I must finish this… I'm so scared… I don't want to kill… I'm waiting for you… It… hurts… mother… father… why? You said that you loved me, you said we would be together forever… you were supposed to love me… protect me… but it hurts now._

July 3, 1975

"You can't catch me!" Midii cried cheerfully as she ran away from her best friend through the village.

"Midii, wait up!" Catherine cried, her smaller form racing to catch up and failing. People watched the two young children run, smiling at the fun of youth. Catherine loved her friend very much, but sometimes she wasn't very considerate. The sun was starting to set and Catherine knew that her mother was going to worry about her, but she didn't want to go just yet.

Catherine Bloom and her mother, Ally Boom, were in Japan visiting old friends of theirs, the Une's. They had all met in Germany, but Midii's father had moved to Japan for business and Catherine never saw her anymore. They only got to see each other one a year during the summer and, while Japan was fun, Catherine still missed her very much. She didn't want to leave tomorrow morning. Though they lived continents away, Midii was still her best friend and she hated saying goodbye. So, when Midii had suggested they go exploring up the forest path, Catherine, against her better judgment, had said yes. That was the way that their relationship had always been, Midii would get her to do stupid, dangerous things even when Catherine knew better. Her mother said that the blonde girl was a bad influence, but for Catherine, she was the only 'real' friend that she had.

The two girls ran up the lengthy forest path, stopping to gawk at a large owl that was sitting in one of the trees. Suddenly, as they reached the top of the winding road, Catherine stopped and Midii crashed into her back.

"What's wrong?" she demanded excitedly. Ever since coming to this tiny town, she yearned for adventure. Why couldn't they have moved to some place more exciting like Tokyo? Instead she was stuck here where nothing happened and the only things she had to look forward to were the yearly visits from Catherine.

Catherine only gaped as she saw the huge mansion in the distance. Midii followed her gaze and grinned. She took off running towards it.

"Midii, what are you doing?!" Catherine called, running after her.

"Exploring, dummy!" Midii yelled. The girls ran up the rest of the way until they were standing in front of a huge gate that was open just enough for them to slip through. The two of them stared up at the ancient mansion with wide eyes.

"Whoa," Midii murmured. Catherine just nodded, her brown her bobbing around her head.

"It's beautiful," she said in a soft voice. It was quiet around the mansion, all forest sounds had died and they couldn't even hear the wind. Midii couldn't believe her eyes. She had lived in this town for two years and had thought that she had seen everything, but this was just… incredible.

"We have to go back," Catherine said in a panic, "my mom's probably worried about me…"

"Oh, come on, Cat, we have to go exploring!" Midii insisted, "When are we going to get the chance again and there's probably some neat stuff in there! It'd be soooo cool to play hide and seek!"

Catherine bit her lip. The huge house, dark and mysterious, scared her, but at the same time, a small part of her did want to explore the place. No one seemed to live there and it would just be for a little while, right? She nodded.

"Alright, but just for a few hours, ok?"

Midii grinned and grabbed her friend's arm, dragging her to the door which was, oddly, unlocked.

"This place is awesome," Midii breathed as they walked through the hallway of rooms. Catherine hid behind her, worried that the old house might drop something on their heads or that bats would come flying out of nowhere. There seemed to be hundreds of rooms in this hallway alone and she was scared that they would get lost. One thing she would never get used to in Japan were the sliding doors that were everywhere in this house. They were cool, but a little bit strange.

"Why doesn't anyone live here anymore?" she wondered out loud. Midii shrugged.

"It looks expensive," she pointed out. Catherine screamed as Midii suddenly smacked her arm.

"You seek, I'll hide!" Midii cried.

"No!" Catherine protested, scared of being left alone in this huge, and very creepy, place. "What if we get lost?!"

Midii didn't hear her, already running down the hall. Catherine sighed and pressed her forehead against the wall. She started to count.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5…"

Midii ran through hallway after hallway, taking random turns, but was careful to only stay on the first floor. After a few minutes had passed, she finally, quietly, opened one of the guest room's sliding door, wondering at how the door didn't stick, despite its age. Even the guest room was large, huge tatami mats making up the floor. There was a coffee table that was low to the ground and a wooden barred window in one corner of the room that moonlight was leaking through, helping her see in the darkness. She headed for the closet and opened the sliding door. Japanese closets were different than German ones, she thought. There were shelves instead of hangers and she climbed up on the shelf, which was only as high as her chest anyway. She closed the door behind her, but left it open just a crack. She would never admit it to Catherine, but she was scared of the dark. However, that fear was kind of exciting, too, so she didn't mind the dark as long as she could see that sliver of moonlight on the floor.

Midii stifled a sneeze. This place probably hadn't been dusted for centuries, she thought, and was immediately nervous of spiders in the small closet. She rested her back against the closet wall and waited. She imagined what it would be like, to be trapped in this closet and how horrible that would be. Stuck in the dark, unable to see if anything was next to you. She shook her head. Stuff like that only happened in horror movies, not real life. Besides, Catherine was here and if she did get stuck, her friend could just get help. The minutes ticked by in the darkness and fear started to eat away at her courage. She scratched at a cut on her arm, which was starting to bleed. She didn't remember how she got it, but it must have been when she had climbed into the closet. It itched and hurt badly, but she had scraped her knees more than once and ignored the pain. The old house made odd noises, creaking and whistling, and logically, she knew that a place this big and this old would sound strange, but she didn't like it. She was starting to think that maybe this idea of hers hadn't been so great when, finally, she heard the bedroom door slide open.

Midii breathed a sigh of relief. At least Catherine hadn't gotten lost. For a moment, she felt panicked. What if it wasn't Catherine, what if it was something horrible? But, the footsteps walking into the room were small and light, those of a child, and she relaxed. She remembered that she was supposed to not want Catherine to find her, but she still hoped that she would. She heard the footsteps and the creak of the tatami getting closer to her, but she couldn't see who it was yet as they were in the shadows. Midii smirked. She was surprised that Catherine hadn't immediately run towards the moonlight. The girl could be such a scaredy cat sometimes. Midii felt herself relax fully as she saw brown hair in the moonlight and young girl approached the closet. She smiled, knowing the game was up, but still stayed silent, wanting to win the game. She frowned when the closet door was opened.

"Alright, you caught me-,"

Midii screamed.

End Prologue

Ugh, finally I can get to the first chapter. It's going to take longer, though.


	8. Chapter 1: Tag

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: Finally, I reveal the ghost's identity.

Chapter 1: Tag

August 3, 1997

"_Mommy, we'll always be together, won't we?"_

"_Of course, baby."_

"_*cough cough* even when I get really old?"_

"… _Yes… even when you get old."_

"_Mommy, I'm tired."_

"_Go to sleep, love… just… go to sleep."_

"We've arrived, ma'am."

The voice of the taxi driver jostled Sally out of her dream. She gasped, sitting up straight, her golden pig tails bouncing against her shoulder. The driver watched her warily, his eyes moving over her Chinese features, but she was used to such treatment, especially here in Japan, in a small town that was just as distrustful of her as she was of him. She looked out the window to the fading light as the sun had started to set. Nasue was a small town and was beautiful in the summer, the cherry trees somehow still blooming despite the heat. She wiped the sweat from her bang-less brow. The air in the cab was broken, but she was used to the summer heat in Japan. She smiled softly as she saw the forest path that the cab had parked near. This was not her first time in Nasue and she knew that no taxi would dare to drive up that path. The old path was filled with obstacles that would be foolish to face in a car and there were the old legends. Even as the world slowly approached the millennium, superstition as old as the creation of the wheel remained. Even the most rational person would hesitate to go up that path, but Sally wasn't here for ration. With light fingers, she caressed the urn in her arms, held tightly against any bumps and jarring as though her life depended on it.

Sally Po had been born and raised in China, but once upon a time, she had fallen in love with a Japanese man named Iso Takuma. He had been the first Japanese person she had come in contact with that had not treated her, or any other Chinese person, with distain and distrust. They had started as friends and had ended as husband and wife. Takuma was from Hijiko, a town near Nasue and, on their wedding night, he had brought her to this little town, up to the old, gorgeous mansion that had been up the road. No one came up to the old mansion, he had assured her, and it would be the perfect place to take the first step of their marriage. They had not ventured into the mansion, because, surely, a house that old had to be a death trap, but they had settled for a spot under the ancient cherry tree in the front garden. The entire area had been protected by a huge gate, keeping them hidden. In the past, Sally would have explored the old house, but with their new future on the horizon, she didn't dare. That night, they had made love under that old tree and two weeks later, Sally had discovered that she was pregnant.

"Thank you," she said in a soft voice to the driver, paying him and getting out of the car. The man looked relieved to be leaving the area and sped off. Sally cradled the urn tightly in her arms and took a deep breath, starting up the long path. It was going to be a long evening.

Their lives had been perfect, but five years after their marriage, Takuma and Sally's daughter, Min, had died from lung cancer. It had been a horrible affair that had seemed endless, at the same time that it had been far too short. They had tried to make it work, but after three months of listening to Takuma's excuses for wanting another child and her screaming at him that she didn't want another, not now, not ever, they had separated. It seemed so quick, after a six year marriage, but she couldn't take it anymore. So, she had taken the nine hour drive from Tokyo to Nasue with her daughter's ashes and the bottle of wine they had had at their wedding in order to go to the place that she had conceived the best thing that had ever happened to her.

"_We'll always be together, won't we?" _

Sally smiled and tightened her grip on the urn. They would always be together, just like she had promised.

The old house was just like she remembered it. The cherry tree was still standing, blooming soft pink petals that blew in the wind. The huge gate doors were open, just like they had been five years ago. She slipped between them and walked to the tree. Near the tree was an elegant stone garden that was in complete disrepair. It made her feel sad. At one point in time, so long ago that no man on this planet remembered it, that garden had been beautiful and perfect, but now the rocks had been flung and scattered by time and the elements. It made her want to try to rebuild it, but she lacked the skill. She caressed the tree with her fingers and pressed her forehead against it. The smell of the cherry blossoms was intoxicating and she closed her eyes.

The single, beautifully sad jingling of a bell filled the silent evening and Sally's pale blue eyes shot open. She looked around the garden, her vision skimming over the windows of the mansion, but she could see nothing that would cause the noise. She shook her head and sat down under the tree. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what things had been like five years ago. It had been just a little bit cooler, but everything looked the same. In a place like this, time had stopped, and that was just fine with her. She placed her daughter's ashes at the base of the tree and poured the whine into the soil. She lay back against the tree's thick trunk and closed her eyes. She could hear the thick melody of the cicada as the sun set and darkness fell over the yard. Sally sighed and looked up at the house. All those years ago, she had passed up the chance to go inside because she had had a future, but there was nothing stopping her now. She fished a flashlight out her purse and left her spot by the tree.

Sally had thought for sure that the door to the huge mansion would be locked. She imagined that, in one point in time, wealthy families had lived there, so there were probably some valuables still inside, but when she tried the door, it opened with only a sharp creaking. As she walked inside, the floorboards creaked under her shoes and her flashlight made arches of light on the old walls. She walked up the steps into the main hallway and gasped. Her flashlight was useless with the huge, maze like hallways and high ceilings. The place looked even bigger on the inside than did on the outside and she felt tiny and insignificant in the face of all of it. She walked through hallway after hallway until she saw a door that was open just a crack and decided to start her exploring here. When she opened the door and went inside, her flashlight moving across the tatami and sliding closets, she gasped again, her hand flying to her mouth. She had heard stories about this place, about how people would come inside and disappear, as though they were spirited away by ghosts. It was not a splatter of blood or ghostly hand prints that had shocked her.

The room was obviously a play room. There were boxes of old toys, things from so long ago, long before gameboys and computers. There was a bright red ball in the corner of the room, big enough for a child to hold it in both hands. There was a koto in another corner, covered in dust while the ball, oddly, had none, and some of the strings were broken with age. There were pieces of paper covered in old drawings, obviously made by a small child, maybe five or six, but the paper was so old it was dark brown and curling. Tears started to run down her cheeks. If she stood there long enough, she could see the children in this room, playing together and laughing. She walked over to the red ball and picked it up. It was perfect, not a single knick or scratch on its surface and it looked brand new. She rolled it around in her hands. It was a very old fashioned sort of toy. Nowadays, kids complained if they didn't get the newest toys, but her baby had never complained. She would have loved a pretty ball like this.

Sally heard the jingle of a single bell behind her and whirled, the ball tucked against her chest and she swung her flashlight around wildly in the pitch darkness, but couldn't find the source of the lonely sound. She sighed, shaking her head and turned back around. The beam of her flashlight suddenly landed on the face of a child and she screamed, dropping the light. The flashlight clanged on the ground, but the light didn't go out. Sally watched in terror as small, pale feet, one of them with a bell and red ribbon tied to the ankle, took a few steps closer to her in the light.

Sally dove for the flashlight and managed to grab it, but when she shone it on the spot where the child had been, there was nothing. She swirled again and in the light of the flashlight, she saw the child looking up at her with violet eyes that seemed to glow like a cat's. She took a stumbling step back. The child was about seven with a beautiful, ethereal face. Long, cinnamon bangs almost completely covered the eyes. The child was wearing, oddly, a sleeveless white kimono. Sally had never heard of a child nowadays wearing a kimono or yukata unless there was a festival. She, or he, though Sally believed that it was a boy, not a girl, had on an obi the color of his eyes, but it was apparent to her why the boy was here and why he could disappear and reappear as she saw thick stains of blood across the pure white fabric and huge, gaping, bloody cuts crossed over his arms and hands, and on his neck was a horrible bruise. Bile rose in her throat. She wanted to run. A ghost… that was what she was looking at… but it was also a child. She looked at his wounds. Who would do that to a little boy? She denied her desire to run and took a step closer to the boy, who had yet to speak or disappear, he only stared at her.

"W-what do you want, honey?" she asked, kneeling down a little to keep from scaring him, ignoring the fact that it was she that was scared. The boy pointed at the ball she was holding.

"This? Is it yours?" she asked, holding out the red ball. The child nodded enthusiastically and she smiled at him. She handed it to him and the ghost took it, hugging it to his body like a cherished pet.

"Who did this to you?" she whispered, horrified as she realized that the mark on his neck was from a rope, "who hurt you?"

The boy's violet eyes stared into hers and she shuddered. There was something in those eyes, something that she couldn't place. It was fear, darkness, something insane, yet he wasn't insane… he was looking at her like any child would, eager and curious.

"_Play with me,_" the child said, its voice echoing off the walls, distorted like a warped record.

"_Mommy, play with me!" _

"What would you like to play?"

The boy smiled, but there something else behind that smile, something she couldn't understand, and ran out of the room, fading away as he reached the door.

"Wait!" she cried, "I want to help you!"

How many years had this child been here, waiting for some affection, some kind hand? Who had hurt him? What possible reason could someone have to hurt a baby like that?

Suddenly, the ceiling creaked as someone small ran on the second floor. She realized it quickly, it was tag, but not just any tag. Japanese children had a game called 'Demon Tag' and her own daughter had played it as well. The person 'it' was the Demon and would chase the other children. If one of them was caught by the Demon, they were considered 'dead' and were brought to a designated place, usually a tree or large rock, that was labeled 'hell' and that person would have to stay there for the rest of the game. She had played it with her daughter many times and now, she smiled.

"Alright, little one, I'll play."

Sally ran up the stairs after the child, tracing her steps until she was directly above the play room. She found herself in a large library, but after checking the entire place, she couldn't find the child. She opened the closet and searched inside. Instead of finding the boy, she found that the back wall was loose and pulled it aside, finding a passage to the next room and crawled through. It was another part of the library, but the boy wasn't in here, either. She tried the door, but it was locked and she realized that she had to go back out through the closet to get back to the hallway. As she turned, she heard the door behind her slide open and she whirled, seeing the brief image of the boy beyond the door before he vanished again and she took off running. She heard his footsteps below her and she made for the stairs again, having trouble finding them in the mixture of dark and confusion of the winding hallways.

Sally followed the sounds of running footsteps until it led her to a long hallway and she could hear them no more. She ran through it, her flashlight wavering crazily, throwing long shadows against the walls. She cried out in shock as a long rope touched her shoulder. High pitched laughter filled the hallway like water into a glass and she looked up, her flashlight catching the image of the boy, sitting up in one of the beams, but the image quickly vanished and she heard the footsteps far away, almost as though it was coming from another world outside of the hallway. As she ran past the ropes to the end of the hall, she felt like she had come from one point in time and ended in another with the impossible length of the hallway. She followed the footsteps to another room and flung open the door, running inside.

The room was enormous, the stairs around the square room leading up only two feet to the main part of the room, which she walked to, only to stop dead in her tracks as the flashlight illuminated the large space of tatami mats. The mats were stained with blood, not old blood, either. In the light, it was fresh and vivid.

"_Play with me."_

She took a step back. Demon tag…

Horrible, insane laughter filled the room and she covered her ears to keep it out of her head. Small hands wrapped around her legs from behind her and she screamed as her flashlight dropped to the ground and went out.

June 7, 2066

"_Please… I don't want to die…"_

_Water surrounded him, weighing him down. The reflection of the rearview mirror burned into his eyes. He clawed at the broken window, slashing his arms and blood filled the freezing water. _

_Blood… why was there so much blood, stop bleeding! _

"_Please don't let them kill me!" _

Heero awoke with the words from his dream echoing in his head and he struggled against the heavy blankets that were weighing him down, just like the water from the dream. He rolled onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes.

"_Please don't let them kill me!" _

He'd been having that part of the dream for years, but now it was encroaching on his other dreams, his other nightmares. Besides his dreams, he had slept deeply last night, for the first time in a long time. He looked blearily over at the clock and calendar at his bedside table. His uncle had opened the shades to his windows some time before leaving, probably in an attempt to get him to wake up earlier, not that it had done any good. For years now, Heero had spent most of his time sleeping, living in his dreams, though he could either never remember them, or he was too scared of them to think of them too much, but he liked dreaming. Sometimes he liked it better than being awake, but last night, he hadn't dreamed very much, he had just… slept. That scared him, the loss of dreams, as though he was close to something. His friend, Quatre, would say that he was close to his soul being healed, but he didn't believe in stuff like that. In the late morning light, Heero was able to see the day calendar. It said that it was the sixth, which meant that today was the seventh, since he hadn't gotten around the tearing off yesterday's page yet. He ripped the page off.

"Fuck, June 7th," he muttered and rolled out of bed. He hated summer, it was too damn hot in Nasue and he had too much time on his hands. Too much time to think. June 7th… today was the day. Exactly four months ago, his parents had died and left him with his uncle, Howard. The man was a bit eccentric, but kind and was doing the best he could with a guarded, closed off seventeen year old. Today was also the day that he and his friends were supposed to start working on their summer project. Every summer since he had started high school, he had had the same project: pick a historical event in Japanese history and report on it. This year, however, their old history teacher had retired and a man named Dekim from Europe had replaced him. Seeing Westerners in Japan nowadays wasn't so rare as it had been and a lot of culture and ritual had been disbanded for modern thinking, but a lot of it also remained. So, when Sensei Dekim had told his students that on the summer before they became seniors, they were to go out and explore historical landmarks in Nasue, both Heero and his friends had been relieved. They still had to do research, but it wouldn't be as stuffy and distant as researching things like World War II. Heero, for one, wasn't looking forward to his senior year at all. He had lived his entire life in Nasue with his parents and didn't want to leave. His life and everything he loved was in this town. His friends talked about how great the future was going to be, but all he heard was that he would no longer be able to see them and it would probably be only during the summer that he could come back home. His councilors were upset that he hadn't chosen any colleges yet and his parents had fought with him about it constantly, but he still wasn't ready to part with his home.

Heero walked into the kitchen and put some toast in the toaster. He looked to the side and saw his parents' picture staring at him. He put it faced down and looked away. It was so hard to imagine that they were gone. It was one of those things he had though would always be there. He felt so lonely and distant from everyone. He felt separate and strange, as though he didn't belong in the world. Still, he loved his friends and if there was anyone in the world that he still felt connected to, it was them.

Relena Darlian was an early riser, always had been, since she was a child. That trait had been instilled in her mother who had always tried to make her a 'proper lady'. Relena wasn't sure if her inability to sleep past eight made her a proper lady, but since she had so much to do today, it was definitely a good thing. The Darlian family had been an English family of nobility until her uncle had been involved with a scandal involving a prostitution ring and her father had made the decision to move out of Europe, away from the publicity, since he didn't want his children to be marked by it. Relena had hated him for moving them all to Japan. It was a far cry to the prestige and class that she had been used to, but when she had met Heero Yuy and his friends, that had changed. She had fallen for the boy, hard, and had made quick friends. Her brother, Zechs, on the other hand, had always hated being in the spotlight and had flourished much quicker than she had. It was her brother who had introduced her to Heero and it was Zechs who had befriended him first. Zechs was two years older than her, but had settled for helping the family than going to college and Relena knew that he would help her and their friends out when they started to work on their project. So, when she had finally gotten an idea, she went running to him.

"Zechs!" she called in perfect Japanese, though a little bit of her English accent broke through, "where are you?"

She ran downstairs after looking in her brother's room, which was neat, as always, but also homey. One thing that annoyed her about her brother, despite the fact that he had always been better liked by everyone, was that, even his Japanese was better than hers, he was capable of letting go of his English heritage and settle into their life. It had been six years since they had moved to Japan, but she hadn't been able to give up where she had come from and that made her miserable at times.

"Relena, stop shouting," Zechs grumbled as she found him in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Both of their parents were gone for the day and Zechs didn't have to work, which meant he would probably spend the day reading and watching TV unless she made him do something. She grinned at him.

"But I have great news!"

Zechs rolled his light blue eyes.

"Fine, 'Lena, what is it?" he said patiently. It wasn't often that his little sister was this enthusiastic.  
"I found where we should do our project!" she said, very proud, "Remember those stories dad used to tell us about the Matsuei Mansion?"

Zechs' eyes widened.

"Relena, you can't be serious, the Haunted Mansion? Isn't that a bit… dangerous?" he asked. Relena snorted.

"Oh, please, don't tell me you actually believe all that!" she scoffed.

"No, I'm not afraid of ghosts, I'm afraid of you or one of your friends falling through the floor and hurting yourselves in a place that has no cell service!" he pointed out. "I told you I'd help with your project, but even my phone doesn't work up that path."

"But it's the perfect place!" Relena protested, "If there's any history in this stupid little town, it's up there! We can do the research today at the library and spend the night there tomorrow. You know, exploring, maybe there will even be some artifacts in the house! It'll be informative and fun!" she said excitedly, "Besides, I'm sure that Quatre's father will give him his global phone and it's not like we're in space or anything. Even without a phone, one of us can just run back into town to get help."

Zechs sighed.

"Fine, I do admit that it sounds more interesting than the harbor or monument. I'll call Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei. Knowing Trowa and Quatre, they're probably together at Trowa's right now anyway," Zechs said with a smirk. Relena frowned. She didn't approve of homosexual relationships, but it wasn't her business, so she tolerated her friends' romance. They did make a cute couple, the petit blonde and the tall brunette, if only Quatre had been born a girl… Relena was immediately glad that Zechs had offered to talk to Wufei. They didn't get along as well as she got along with the others. He hated how she acted around his best friend, Heero, and her feelings towards Quatre and Trowa, but they were still friends. Still, Relena hated talking to Wufei on the phone because he always talked flatly and she could never tell if he was making fun of her or not.

"You can deal with Yuy, if he's awake by now," Zechs grumbled. He had made friends with Heero easily when they had first moved here. Heero's parents' bakery had been close to their house and he had been the first person that Zechs had talked to when they had arrived in Nasue. It had been hard the last few months dealing with Heero. After his parents' deaths, he had become more withdrawn and despondent than ever, but Zechs was resolved to help him through it. He was glad to see that at least Heero's sleeping habits hadn't changed. Heero Yuy was the most straight laced, responsible person he had ever met, but had the habit of sleeping in as late as he could get away with. He picked up the phone and dialed Wufei's number first.

Chang Wufei limped towards the phone as it rang. He had moved to Nasue with his father four years ago because of a death in the family that had hit everyone hard. His father had wanted to put the past behind them, but even Wufei knew that you couldn't bury the past, it was a part of who you were. His mother had wanted Wufei to go through therapy and stay in China, but his father had been adamant that a change of scenery would be better. Wufei had been dealing with his limp for only a year because of a car accident where he had received a concussion, three broken ribs, and broken leg that still plagued him now. His limp wasn't too bad, but it did make it impossible for him to be an athlete, which suited him just fine. He preferred books to baseballs anyway. Today, his father was at the drug store where he worked and he had been spending his morning reading the paper. Though he lived in a small town, he liked to keep up with the rest of the world. Sometimes he wondered what his life would be like if he had staid in China. When he had first moved, he had hated his father for it. He wanted to stay with his family and work through their mutual grief, but now he didn't mind it as much. Japan was still a strange place to him, but he had friends now and they made his life here worthwhile. The next year of school would be very important for all of them since they would be graduating and going to college soon. Wufei knew that he wanted to be a doctor, but not all of his friends were so sure. Relena was still indecisive, but wanted to go back to England for college and just decide as she went along. Zechs would continue to stay here and help his family. Quatre and Trowa were going to stay together, which Wufei envied them for at the same time that he was happy for them. They were the type of people that were born for each other. Looking at them, he couldn't imagine them apart. They were going to attend the same college in America, much to Quatre's father frustration. Quatre came from a family of oil tycoons and would be picking up after his father. His father knew of his son's relationship with another boy and had, surprisingly, not cared. His only concern was continuing the family line and Quatre had so many sisters that it didn't matter what Quatre did, though only a boy could continue the business. He managed to convince his father that he would go as planned after college, but for now he wanted to enjoy his independence for as long as he could. Trowa wanted to be a vet after living for so many years among circus animals as a child in France. Heero, on the other hand, had no such ambition. He hadn't even chosen a school yet! Wufei couldn't understand his best friend, he was so smart, but so connected to this tiny town for some reason. He shook his head and answered the phone.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Wufei, Relena thinks she's found a place for your project," he heard Zechs say. Wufei raised one ebony eyebrow.

"Really? Quatre will be glad to hear that. He's been worrying about it since school ended."

"How about Matsuei Mansion?" Zechs asked. Wufei's hand tightened on the phone.

"Your sister wants us to go walking around a house that hasn't been occupied in over two centuries?" Wufei looked down at his leg worriedly, "Zechs… you know I can't walk up that path, it's too long and too steep for me."

"Don't worry. You and I will be taking my Jeep up there before the others and we won't make you run around the house," Zechs assured him, his voice soft.

"Alright," Wufei agreed, "it sounds interesting. I'm sure that there's plenty of history in that place."

Zechs had to smile at the excitement in his friend's voice. If there was one thing Wufei loved, it was history.

"We're going to go to the library at one today to do some research. I'll pick you up, ok?"

"No problem," Wufei said and hung up.

"Mm, Trowa, no," Quatre moaned loudly as his lover sucked lightly on his pale neck. His hands gripped at Trowa's strong shoulders as the green eyed boy nipped his fair skin. Trowa smirked against Quatre's neck, loving the sound of the blonde's moans.

"You're so cute," Trowa murmured, rubbing his hand against the hardness in his lover's slacks, making Quatre choke on his moan.

"I love you so much."

Quatre widened his aqua blue eyes at the taller boy's words.

"Oh, Trowa," he murmured, wrapping his arms around Trowa and kissing him sweetly.

Quatre Winner and Trowa Barton had moved to Nasue ten years ago from the Middle East and France, respectively. They had met on the plane to Tokyo and had been best friends ever since. After the death of Trowa's parents in the middle of a gang fight, Trowa's uncle Trowa, whom he had been named after, had taken him to rural Japan for fresh mountain air and safety. Trowa didn't remember too much about his parents and had settled in with his uncle fairly well. Quatre's father had had a scare due to corporate espionage and worried that his only son would become a target for rival companies so had whisked the two of them off to Nasue as well. When they were thirteen, they discovered that they had a mutual attraction for each other and had been dating ever since.

The two boys groaned in annoyance as the phone rang and Trowa quickly picked it up.

"Hello? Yeah, this is Trowa. No, that sounds fine. We'll meet you there in an hour, then. Bye, Zechs," Trowa hung up.

"What was that about?" Quatre asked, cocking his head to the side. Trowa ran a hand through his long, jagged bangs.

"Apparently, we're doing our school report on the Matsuei Mansion. Should be interesting. We have to meet them in the library in an hour," Trowa told him. Quatre paled.

"M-Matsuei Mansion?" Quatre stammered, terrified.

For as long as Quatre could remember, he could see, hear, and feel things that other people couldn't. His father didn't believe him when he told him that he could see spirits and auras until his mother had died. He had told his father that there was a dark shadow following her and he was sure that she was going to die. The next day, she was hit by a car. When he went to the cemetery for her funeral, he had been assaulted by so many things that he ended up in the hospital. He had been very careful since then to stay away from any places where people had died or were known to be haunted, places like Matsuei Mansion.

"Trowa, I can't go to that place!" Quatre protested. Trowa hugged him tightly.

"Don't worry, love, I'll protect you," Trowa said with a smile. Quatre couldn't help but smile back. His lover knew all about his… abilities and had never teased him about them. He also felt safe from his visions when Trowa was around. He supposed that that was the power of love.

"Now, where were we…"

Relena sighed as her friends poured over old newspaper articles and folklorist notes. Heero was helping Quatre with the newspaper machine and didn't seem to notice her sigh. He was so cute, she thought, those intense blue eyes, that thick, messy chocolate locks… but he was so aloof. They were friends, but it was like he didn't even know that she was a woman.

"Oh, that's so sad," Quatre murmured as he and Heero found another article on the mansion.

"What is it?" Wufei asked, limping towards them.

"So far we've found at least 143 recorded deaths," Heero said. Quatre nodded.

"I had no idea that this town had so many disappearances," Wufei murmured, "but what is that one?" he pointed to one of the articles Heero had pulled up.

"In 1982, a New Year's party was thrown in the Matsuei Mansion. By morning, a fire had killed all twenty-six people. The origin of the fire was never discovered, but firefighters believed that a paper lantern caught fire. The flames were contained and never left the house and the house itself wasn't damaged in any way. The fire burned so hot that the only remains of the twenty-six dead were dust and ashes," Quatre read, feeling fear fill his heart. So many dead and in such horrible ways… one of the bodies found up on that path had been literally torn apart. Were they really thinking of going into that place?

"That's impossible," Wufei said skeptically, "no fire that is that hot will leave a structure of wood untouched!"

Heero shrugged.

"That's what the newspaper says."

Zechs collected the laminated newspapers and books they had found.

"I'm going to ask the librarian to photocopy these. I think we have enough facts for your essays," he said. Relena cheered.

"Finally, the boring part is over!"

Trowa rolls his eyes.

"We still have to _write _the report, you know," he reminded her.

"Oh, we can do that after we explore the place!" she brushed him off, "We should go up there first thing in the morning!"

"I have to agree," Quatre said, refusing to let his fear over his psychic abilities to destroy this for the rest of his friends, "we should go around seven. Trowa and I will get a phone from my father and food. Relena can collect flashlights. Wufei can take care of the first aid kit, just in case, and Heero can bring notepads for all of us and Zechs will get the house maps."

"Eleven," Heero interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest. Quatre blinked at him and narrowed his eyes.

"Heero…"

"I'm not getting up at seven!"

"Fine, eight, then!"

"Ten!"

"Nine!"

"Fine," Heero grumbled, ignoring Relena's giggling. Trowa and Wufei watched this in amusement.

"Are you done yet?" Trowa asked dryly. Heero glared at him.

"Nine it is, then," Quatre said with a grin. "I expect all of you to be on time!"

The other four nodded at him as Zechs came back with the copies.

Despite Heero grumblings, he showed up at the gate to the Matsuei Mansion promptly at nine, though his eyes were half lidded. Oddly, he hadn't slept at all last night. He had stared up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. There was a fine fog as Relena, Trowa, Quatre, and Heero walked up the forest path together. They continuously heard the incessant hooting of an owl in the thick settling of trees. However, by the time they had reached the top of the path and saw the house looming darkly in their sights, the day had turned hot and the fog had lifted. Quatre and Relena gasped as they saw the house.

"It's huge!" Relena managed to choke out. Trowa nodded, but Heero could only stare. His heart pounded as he saw the mansion. It was so… beautiful. Old, but perfectly kept, at least on the outside. He could almost imagine the type of people that could have lived here so long ago.

Zechs and Wufei were waiting for them as they slipped through the huge gate.

"Oh, what pretty trees!" Relena exclaimed as she saw the front yard with its cherry trees and stone garden. Quatre nodded. He felt ok so far. Maybe Wufei was right and this whole thing was just ridiculous.

"Have you gone inside yet?" Trowa asked Wufei who shook his head.

"I hope the door's open," Quatre mentioned. The rest of them groaned.

"I should have thought of that," Zechs grumbled, helping hand out the supplies to each of them. Quatre felt a little bit of his fear ebb away when he held the flashlight in his hand.

Zechs stared up at the house and shivered. He was the oldest and he knew that he had to take charge, but there was a part of him, deep down, that really didn't want to open that door. He looked around at the others and found that fear in their eyes, too. It was stupid, they didn't believe in ghosts, at least Zechs, Relena, and Wufei didn't, but there was still that fear of the unknown. They all watched in shock as Heero stepped forward and opened the door.

Heero wasn't sure why he did it. He was just as scared of the house, but there was a deep, dark part of himself that wanted to go inside very badly.

"It's so cold," Relena murmured as she entered, "It's so… scary."

Quatre shivered. It had been so hot outside, but in here, it was cool. He stepped into the main hallway and his heart immediately started to pound. His whole body clenched, telling him to flee, to run before it was too late, but he couldn't move, he was paralyzed on the spot. There was something horribly wrong, every sense he had, both normal and supernatural, was telling him that this place was wrong down to the planks of wood they walked on. He shivered again, harshly and his eyes clouded over as he stared into the shadows, a scream on his tongue, his eyes seeing, yet not really seeing. Trowa saw his lover pause while their friends continued into the house and start to shake.

"Quatre, what's wrong?" he whispered, putting a hand on the blonde's arm and his vision faded to black.

Trowa's vision came back to him. He and Quatre were standing in a long hallway with long ropes hanging from the rafters. Quatre bumped into him as he backed away and Trowa saw why. A beautiful young boy with long chestnut hair was hanging in front of them, one of the ropes around his neck, blood dripping down his feet and hands, pattering lightly on the floor. The vision wavered, like a broken TV set and Trowa almost fell back as a shard of mirror collided with the floor in front of him. The vision of the hanging boy wavered in and out with another of a small boy, also with long brown hair, almost completely covered in blood, laughing so insanely that Trowa felt like screaming. He covered his hands as the laughter seared into his brain.

'Stop it, stop it, stop laughing!' he screamed in his head.

Quatre panted, tears streaming down his cheeks as he saw the boy, too, with hundreds of bodies at his feet.

"No…" he whispered. The boy stopped laughing and stared at him, his eyes cold and glowing and quite insane. Trowa grabbed at Quatre's hand as the vision seemed to crack and half and they were seeing the blood soaked boy at the same time as they saw the older boy that had been hanging in the hallway, but he was alive now, kneeling on the floor in front of them, wearing the white, blood soaked kimono that the other visions had had. The boy was sobbing, his body shaking with his agony and Quatre could see horrible slashes on his arms.

"_Please… come for me… don't leave me alone again! It's so dark…"_

Quatre and Trowa gasped as one as they were suddenly thrown out of the vision by an invisible force, still holding each other's hand tightly. Relena looked back at them with an odd expression.

"What's wrong?" Zechs asked. Quatre shook his head, but he was pale enough that he looked like a ghost himself.

"N-no, we're fine," he insisted and the others continued into the maze of hallways. Trowa looked at his lover in concern.

"Quatre… what was that?"

"I'm so sorry," Quatre cried quietly, "you shouldn't have seen that, I'm so sorry."

Trowa smiled at him and hugged him tightly.

"It's ok. You shouldn't be here."

Quatre smiled back.

"No, it's alright. It was just a vision… it wasn't… real. I just have to keep my cool," he assured Trowa. The two of them followed their friends, but their minds were elsewhere.

Heero put a hand on Relena's shoulder as she shivered again, though he couldn't tell if it was in fear or the cold.

"It's just a little dark and we brought jackets if it gets too cold," Heero tried to comfort her, but he wasn't used to it and felt useless trying to do it. She smiled at him brightly anyway and tried to hold his hand, but he continued into the house. The group flicked on their flashlights and walked into the first hallway.

"It's so beautiful," Heero whispered, not realizing that he had spoken out loud and put a hand on the wall. The house was old, but felt a bit comforting to him. It was still creepy, the little creaks and groans and the way that the shadows seemed to move on their own, but it was the sort of place that should have been preserved by the town's historical society, not left to grow old and die up on a hill somewhere. The hallways here were like literal mazes with so many guest rooms that it would have been impossible without the house plans for them to navigate. Past at least five of these rooms was an open door and on the plans it said that it was a play room. Heero felt an almost magnetic pull to the room and Relena followed closely behind her as he opened the shoji door.

Heero froze as he entered the room, wrapping his arms around himself and shivering, but couldn't feel Relena shivering behind him. It was so cold in here and he felt an intense shudder travel down his spine. Why was he so cold? Heero smiled as Relena placed a warm hand on his shoulder and he placed his hand over hers.

"I'm fine," he assured her.

Relena didn't seem to hear him as she walked past him into the room. Heero's eyes widened and the color drained from his face. The hand under his was small, soft, and slender, but his fingers could feel imperfections on the skin, like scars. He whirled, hearing the sweet, beautiful chime of a bell, but there was nothing behind him. He stood there, shaken to the core, panting, as the others caught up with them.

"What's wrong, Heero?" Quatre asked, half suspicious, half concerned.

"It's nothing," the Japanese boy brushed it off and followed Relena into the room. He was just tired and creeped out by the old place. That was no reason to go off the deep end. In the darkness, his flashlight hit on a bright red ball amongst the other toys in the room and his gut clenched for some reason.

"For a playroom, it sure is creepy in here," Zechs muttered, "who has the map anyway?"

"I do," Heero said, handing it over to Zechs. Relena bent down at one of the toy chests and rummaged through it, piling dolls and puzzles on the floor.

"Relena, don't touch that!" Heero snarled at her. Relena stared at him with wide eyes, deeply hurt.

"Heero, who cares?"

"I do," he snapped, "show some respect."

Relena abandoned the box, giving Heero a seething look. Zechs raised an eyebrow at him.

"You know, Heero's right. We're not here to rummage, we're here to get a feel for this place. Just because no one lives here anymore doesn't mean we can just go through people's past personal effects. Now, there's some places we should definitely check out. There's this really long stretch of hallway called the 'Hanging Hallway'."

Quatre and Trowa shared a look and tightened their grips on each other's hands.

"According to the map, it's over a mile long," Zechs continued, "It wasn't even on the plans until the notes of a professor were found in 2003 in which he talked about the hallway and drew where it was in the house. There's the courtyard, though there's not much out there but the old well and some flowers. There's the Leisure Room where the Matsuei family used to celebrate all sorts of occasions, that was where that New Year's party was held, too. It's also the biggest single room in the house. There's the main family bedroom's on the second floor and a workshop on this floor."

"This place is so cool," Relena said, "Let's go to the workshop!"

As the group left the playroom, Heero looked back at the red ball, sitting lonely in a corner and rubbed at the place where the hand had touched him.

"One of the Matsuei men who lived here made dolls for the children," Zechs informed them as they walked through the hallway.

"I know it's a bit obvious, but this place is really, really creepy," Relena said, looking around at every shadowed corner in the hallway and wincing at the creaking floorboards, "I mean, why hasn't anyone filmed a horror movie in here or something?"

Wufei rolled his eyes behind her, his game leg making the floorboards creak even louder. Quatre gasped as their flashlights caught onto a gaping hole in the side wall next to the door to the workshop that allowed them to see into the room. The posts that had supported the wall were curled outward like claws and the hole looked like something of tremendous force had blown out of the room.

"Did a bomb go off in here or something?" Trowa wondered out loud.

"No," Zechs said, his eyes narrowing in confusion, "there isn't any explosive force in the entire world that can bend posts like that."

Relena searched her brother's face as Wufei furiously scribbled in his notebook. She felt uneasy looking at the hole. According to Zechs, it shouldn't exist and that bothered her. They walked past the hole and pushed open the door.

There were shards of the workshop bench were all over the room and there were several dismembered dolls strewn about in the corners, but the most gruesome were the red and black haired dolls that were hanging by ropes around their necks from the ceiling.

"That's horrible," Relena whispered.

"They're just dolls," Wufei snorted and the blonde girl glared at him.

"It's grotesque!"

Heero stared at the hanging dolls and felt an intense pain stab in his head. He rubbed at the scars on his wrists and started to back out of the room. This place… it was wrong. He didn't need to see ghosts to feel that. He left his friends in the room and opened the door to the adjacent guest room. He couldn't stay in the workshop. Relena was right, it was grotesque, this whole place was grotesque. Hundreds of people had died here! He kept the shoji door open so he could keep an eye on his friends. The worst thing he could think of happening was being alone in this place. The guest room was very plane and reminded Heero of his own room. There was a sliding closet, an old, moth eaten futon, a low table, and some bookshelves. Near the closet was a body length mirror. Oddly, none of the mirrors in this place had a speck of dust on them. He walked towards the closet and opened it. He sighed. It was empty, not that he would suspect anything different. He loved this old house. It was beautiful, though a bit big and lonely. It was one of the reasons why he never wanted to move away from Nasue, there were just so many good things here. Even though the house made him feel wrong, he loved it anyway. As he closed the closet, he caught movement in the corner of his eye and turned towards the mirror.

His flashlight flickered as it tried, feebly, to get a read on what his own eyes were seeing. On the other side of the mirror was the most beautiful boy Heero had ever seen. His long, chestnut hair was wrapped in a braid that was draped over his thin shoulder. The boy was wearing a bloodstained kimono and, Heero mentally winced, his snowy skin was slashed open on his arms. His violet eyes stared at Heero and the Japanese boy felt tears forming in his own at the darkness, loneliness, and anguish he saw there. He ached to touch him at the same time that it felt like his soul was ripping apart. The boy's mouth moved, but he couldn't make out the words.

"Who are you?" he murmured. The boy touched the glass of the mirror, his fingers pressed against it. Heero smiled at him, his heart pounding with the need to touch that slender hand. He followed the boy's move, placing his fingertips over the other boy's, the thin glass the only thing separating the two of them.

Heero cried out as the mirror cracked, slicing his hand open. Blood splattered onto the floor and when he looked back at the mirror, the boy was gone.

As Zechs and Relena explored the workshop, Quatre watched as Heero reappeared, looking pale and shaken. He gave him a searing look. Something was going on with his friend, more than the cold and the creepiness of the house, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Heero was usually so composed to the point of being stoic, but as soon as he had come here, he had been acting strange.

Relena grabbed Heero's hand and dragged him out of the workshop, but continued to be despondent, his mind a mile away. Heero didn't believe in ghosts, even as a child. He had always been a practical person, so why had he seen it? He hadn't wanted to, and yet… that boy… he looked so sad, Heero wanted to help him. He stared at the slash on the palm of his hand. The wound was nothing compared to what that boy had had on his skin, but it stung and felt heavy, as though it was infected with something dark and horrible. Was it possible that he had done it to himself? Still, despite that he wanted to pretend that it hadn't been real, he couldn't. That boy had been as real as the wood under his feet. He fingered the cut, feeling blood soak his fingertips. The pain was comforting for some reason.

Relena smiled in the dark, Heero hand wonderfully warm in hers. In the past, she had done everything except for jumping in bed with him to get him to notice her, but she felt like a ghost beside him, unnoticed, invisible, less than living. She had never given up hope, but it was hard. Heero was just so aloof and in the years that she had known him, he had never shown an interest in anyone, girl or boy. Sometimes she wondered if he was simply asexual, but it was nice to hold hands with him like this, even if he didn't see anything romantic behind it.

Quatre clenched at his chest as they walked down the hallway, fear and chill gripping at his heart. The air was so heavy, it was hard to breathe. Long, whitish arms reached for them out of the walls, hundreds of arms… he shivered. They had been following them down the hallway since they had left the workshop. There were huge soot marks on the walls. As they walked, the soot grew and grew in size, taking the forms of what looked like people's shadows. The soot moved on the walls like something alive, bulging out of the wall. He cried out as the soot forms reared from the wall to try to grab at him, but they were tethered by long trails of soot to the wall, even as they struggled to free themselves from the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, all of his friends were looking at him with concern.

"There's something bad here," he told them, "I can _feel _it. We shouldn't be here!"

Relena sighed.

"Not that psychic mumbo jumbo again, Quatre!" she scolded, "There's no such thing as ghosts or bad omens, I mean, no one else has seen anything, have they?"

Heero looked away, paling a little. Quatre caught his look.

"I believe him," Trowa said, giving Quatre's arm a little squeeze.

"For once I'll have to agree with Relena," Wufei said, "There's nothing here but cobwebs and dust."

Quatre ignored them. The soot ghosts weren't going away. His ability showed him the wavering phantoms of people scrubbing at the marks on the walls over and over, but the soot wouldn't go away. The soot would swallow up anything that got too close, but for now, they stayed rooted. He knew, somehow, that they were the ghosts of the victims of the people from the fire and also realized that this wasn't just a vision because both the arms and the soot didn't go away, even when he closed and reopened his eyes.

Relena gasped as they entered the Leisure Room. It was a huge room with a few stairs leading up to the tatami floor. She could imagine an elegant party in this room, but as they walked up the stairs, her delighted gasp turned to one of shock as they saw the thick blood stains on the tatami. Quatre and Heero quickly left, Trowa following them. Quatre hung his head as they left the room.

"This place _is _wrong," Heero said, "but that's why it's important to do research here, to find out its history, but if it bothers you that much…"

Quatre shook his head.

"I know that history is important, not just for our grades, either, and this is a part of the town, and what I've been seeing are probably just echoes, but I can't help but feel scared."

Relena, Wufei, and Zechs looked concerned as they followed the other three.

"Even if you're scared, these things happened in the past," Wufei assured Quatre, "they can't hurt you now."

"I keep seeing strange and terrible things in this house," Quatre murmured, giving Heero a searching look, "you have, too."

Heero's eyes widened and he looked away. Relena laughed.

"I know you're superstitious, Quatre, and reading all those stories about this place couldn't have helped, but Heero isn't like that. People disappear all the time, especially in the woods, it doesn't mean anything."

"I did see something," Heero interrupted, looking at Quatre, "a boy in a mirror wearing a white kimono, stained with blood."

Trowa and Quatre looked at each other in alarm.

"We saw the same thing."

Wufei frowned.

"Well, we haven't seen anything," he looked at Zechs and Relena for confirmation and they nodded. "Isn't possible that you're just mistaken."

Heero showed them his still bleeding hand.

"Oh, Heero!" Relena cried, rummaging in her bag for the first aid kit, "Why didn't you tell us you had hurt yourself?"

"I didn't hurt myself!" Heero snapped, annoyed with her tone, "I touched the mirror and it cracked! Yes, people disappear all the time, but not hundreds of people in one area," he pointed out. Wufei sighed.

"Ok, I can accept Quatre seeing dead people, but Heero? We've all seen Quatre in his 'fits' but Heero doesn't have a psychic bone in his body!"

"What about the accident?" Trowa asked.

"That has nothing to do with anything," he said defensively.

"Wait, that is true, you almost died," Zechs said, "if it hadn't been for that broken window, you would have died. You almost died anyway because of the water in your lungs."

Heero glared at him.

"So my father drove the car into a pond. They died, I didn't, give it a rest!"

"But that may explain why you're seeing things," Quatre tried to explain, "you told me that you felt alone in the hospital, dealing with their death and knowing that you could have joined them.

"I felt lonely before their deaths," Heero admitted in a soft voice, "I've felt lonely my entire life."

"Oh, Heero," Relena murmured softly.

"It doesn't matter what I see or if this place is haunted. We have a report to write, unless anyone wants to leave and do it on something else?" Heero offered, even as, deep inside, he didn't want to leave. At the very least, he wanted to learn the ghost's name. He didn't like the feeling of being haunted.

"Of course we're not going to leave," Relena said, "Ghosts are exciting! Still, I don't believe in them and you're not helping by feeding into Quatre's delusions."

Heero ignored her. He didn't believe that Quatre was delusional, he never had, but he still didn't want to believe that he had seen a spirit.

"Alright, stop bickering," Zechs ordered, "It's almost lunch time. Let's head to the second floor and pick out guest rooms for ourselves. We can have something to eat and check out the rooms up there and settle in for tonight to go over what we've found. Personally, I'm interested in the Hanging Hallway. We'll check that out and the courtyard tomorrow," he said, ever the voice of reason. Quatre shrugged. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the night in this place, but Heero was right. He had known the risks of settling for this place. He knew that he could just leave and do his report elsewhere, but that would just make him feel miserable anyway. Still, he grabbed onto Trowa's sleeve as they walked down the hallway, the image of the blood stained tatami and the child standing in the middle of the room laughing insanely that had been there for only a second, was seared in his mind.

They all looked at the old stairs with worry. It didn't look sturdy at all and the last thing they wanted was for someone to fall through them and break a leg. Relena and Wufei fought about who should test the stairs and if they should draw straws, but Zechs decided that, as the heaviest, he should try to see if the stairs were strong enough to support all of them. Everyone held their breath as the longhaired man took his first step on the stair. The wood creaked and a small layer of dust drifted down, but the wood didn't waver or splinter and they breathed in relief. Quatre was relieved to find that the walls on the second floor didn't have anything on or coming out of them and felt his headache start to ease off. According to the house plans, the rooms on the second floor belonged to the higher levels of the Matsuei family, the Master, his wife or mistress, his siblings, and their children. In the long, main hallway, they spotted a door that was different than the others, the wood a deep red instead of a dark brown, and they went inside.

Heero immediately felt ill, heavy and pained, when he entered, though he couldn't figure out why. The room was bigger than the guest rooms downstairs and there wasn't anything unusual about it with one exception: every room they had gone into, and every hallway, had had a mirror, except for this one. There wasn't even a small hand mirror. The room seemed to be frozen in time. The futon looked slept in, as though someone had left in a hurry and hadn't bothered to fix it, chopsticks had been strewn hastily, and the closet was wide open, the sheets and kimonos also tossed around.

"How pretty!" Relena exclaimed, spotting a paper lantern by the futon that had little butterflies cut out of it. There was a large window with wooden bars horizontal and vertical that let the sun shine into the room, so they turned off their flashlights. Zechs picked up one of the kimonos on the floor and Heero froze when he saw that it was pure white, violet obis intermingled with the kimonos.

"Looks like it was meant to fit a boy," Zechs said, looking at Heero, but Heero refused to rise to the bait. He opened one of the jewelry boxes on top of the cabinet near the closet. There were no rings, just silken red ribbons that had probably been used as hair ties. In the top drawer were several journals that were too old to read except for one name: Matsuei Duo. He looked over at the white kimonos.

'Is that your name?' he wondered. Somehow, it seemed right.

"Is this his room?" Quatre murmured.

"Hey, check this out," Wufei called from the other side of the room. He was kneeling in front of a long stretch of wooden lattice that only rose a few feet off the floor. Relena made a disgusted face as he discovered that he could slide it open as a door and shone his flashlight into the dark crawlspace.

"I am _not _going in there!" she pouted.

"Oh, come on, 'Lena, live a little!" her brother teased and he leaned down next to Wufei. "It looks like there's some stairs here."

"A secret passageway?" Quatre said excitedly. Despite his fear, the small child inside of him poked his head out at the thought of secret rooms and tunnels.

"There's probably spiders and rats in there!" Relena protested.

"I'll go first," Trowa offered.

"Are you sure?" Quatre asked, worried for his lover's safety. Trowa nodded.

"I'm not afraid of rats," the tall boy said with a smile. The lattice made a loud creaking noise as the pulled it back the rest of the way and Trowa slipped inside, the rest of them following with Relena hesitantly at the back.

The inside of the wall wasn't much to write home about, just a long stairwell that led to a small door, something that was more suited to a ten year old than an adult and the five seventeen year olds and nineteen year old would have to bend down to get through it.

"Is this supposed to be an attic?" Trowa wondered as he started up the steps.

"But the door is so small…" Relena mentioned, "Oh! Maybe it's a special playroom!"

"I doubt it," Zechs said, "those kimonos weren't for a kid. I don't think that this place has anything to do with the room it's connected to. It could be an attic."

The small door had a heavy padlock on it, but it had rusted all the way through and Trowa managed to open the door easily, but struggled to get his tall form through.

"Fuck," Quatre heard Trowa say before he ducked to enter the room.

The room was small and gruesome. Inside of the room was a box shaped area that was cornered off by thick wood that crisscrossed, creating a small prison.

"It's a cell," Zechs noted somberly. Quatre covered his mouth with a hand as he saw the small door to the cell.

"That's horrible," Relena murmured, "the newspaper didn't say anything about a prison."

Heero approached the cell door with a heavy heart. His muscles ached, but he leaned down to try the lock anyway and found that this lock had rusted through also.

"It's for a child, not a criminal," Heero said. Relena looked at him with wide, horrified eyes.

"That's not possible, Heero!"

Heero opened the small door and kneeled inside.

"Then why are there toys and why is the door so small?"

The others followed him and saw that he was right, the room had dolls and teddy bears and books for children. It would have looked like a proper play room if it weren't for the bars surrounding them and the pair of manacles locked onto the floor by thick chains.

"This is sick," Quatre whispered. Heero picked up a worn journal on the low table in the middle of the room. It was in slightly better shape than the other one he had found and he was able to make out a few things: the name 'Matsuei Duo' and the last few lines, some in between too blurry for him to read.

"_It is so lonely here. I can hear the wind moving downstairs. It will not even reach me. I am truly alone…_

… _I know that it is inevitable, but I am afraid to die." _

Heero felt bile rise in his throat at the thought of the ghost he had seen living up here, the thought of those thick, iron manacles around his thin, pale ankles. He closed the book and put it back, not wanting the others to read the words. He felt that it was too personal and felt weird that he had read them. His heart was pounding too fast and he felt on the verge of a panic attack. He had never felt like this before, even with the news that his parents had died in the accident, leaving him all alone.

"His name is Duo," he announced to the room, "I know that much."

Relena and Wufei gave him searching looks, but Quatre nodded and Trowa and Zechs seemed to accept this.

"Did he live here?" Quatre wondered, "In this cell?" he shuddered as the image of the hanging boy came back to him.

"I don't know," Heero confessed, "I don't think so. I think he lived downstairs, but at some point, I think he came here."

Zechs sighed heavily. This was more than he could hope for, a house with a very dark history, but he didn't really want it like this. He didn't blame Quatre and Heero for scaring so easily, ghosts or not, just standing in this room, he could imagine hearing voices as well.

"Let's get out of here," he prodded.

The group of six picked out one of the large rooms to work and sleep in and settled in for lunch. Trowa had brought sandwiches and bentos and two large thermoses of green tea and iced coffee with several bottles of water in a cooler. Zechs and Heero were unbearable without coffee and Wufei and Quatre refused to drink anything but water or tea. Relena made a small derisive comment about there not being any Darjeeling, but she let it go and settled for water. She was especially excited about visiting the Master's bedroom. She talked about all through lunch about how opulent and beautiful it would be, but became quickly disappointed to find that it was locked and they couldn't get the door open. They backtracked to the other rooms they had visited and wrote notes about anything they found interesting before conjoining back into 'their' room for the night. They had quickly discovered that no one had installed up to date bathrooms. There were no showers, no toilets, but there were some ways of bathing and 'going to the bathroom', though nothing from this century. Relena immediately had the desire to take a shower after the long hike up the forest path and all the dusty things they had been touching and weighed going two days without washing with taking an archaic bath, but her hatred of filth won out and she excused herself with the small tube of travel shampoo she had brought with her.

As they looked over their notes and talked about everything they had seen, Quatre absently scratched at his shoulder while Wufei squirmed uncomfortable from, what everyone assumed was from his leg. Heero felt bad about having him go up two flights of stairs with his game leg. The boys all flinched as one as they heard Relena scream.

"Relena!" Zechs jumped to his feet, ready to save his sister, but she beat him to the punch, running into the room dressed in clean clothes, but she was soaked, her hair still having soap in it.

"What is this?!" she cried, showing them a gash on her arm. Despite the fact that it was slowly bleeding, it wasn't very deep and mostly just burned and itched, but it was startling on her fair skin. Zechs touched her arm, examining the wound. Quatre watched all of this with wide, fearful eyes.

"How did this happen?" Zechs demanded.

"I don't know," Relena whispered, "I mean, I've been scratching on it for a few minutes now, but I didn't notice it until I got into the shower!"

With a shaky hand Quatre drew his t-shirt over his shoulder and Relena gasped as she saw a similar gash on his shoulder.

"T-that's not possible!" she cried.

"It started a little while ago, it just itched, then it started to burn and ache," Quatre said in a shocked voice, poking at the bleeding wound. The others looked at each other and started to search. Wufei found a gash on his leg, Zechs on his collarbone, and Trowa on the top of his foot. The only one that hadn't found anything was Heero.

"What is going on?" Quatre said to himself as Trowa double checked Heero's back. They whirled around to face Relena as she screamed again.

It was Duo, only, it wasn't Duo. He wasn't in a mirror, but standing in the middle of them, like he was one of them, just… standing there.

"Duo…" Heero murmured and the specter looked at him with empty violet eyes. Relena couldn't stop screaming, seeing the ghost's mutilated body. Heero's eyes were solely focused on the… things… coming out of the boy's back, writhing, horrible things, slithering over the boy's form, screaming and laughing in a silent symphony that tried to drive them all mad. The boy's eyes were so empty, yet… there was some sort of darkness in them. The ghost looked over at Relena, whose screams had petered off into shocked gasps.

"No… you're not… real… you're not!" she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. The ghost smiled at her, but there was nothing good in the smile and they all felt a terrible shudder go down them, wanting to run. Then, the image was gone.

"Was that what you saw?" Zechs asked Heero, staring at the spot where the boy had stood, the wood there terribly rotted. Heero shook his head.

"No," he whispered, "this is something different."

Suddenly, horrible, insane laughter filled the room and they covered there ears as it rolled around in their minds. Downstairs, the front door and huge front gate slammed closed.

End Chapter 1

Well, that was much longer than intended. Sooo, Duo's the ghost, but is he really dead? Why is he dead if he is and why does he sometimes appear as something evil or a child? Why is Fatal Frame 2 so damn depressing? Ok, the first questions will be answered, but not the last one, because, only those who have played that game will understand it. Nyu.


	9. Chapter 2: The Feeding Place

Beyond the Looking Glass

Author's Notes: Sorry about the long delay. The Road to Kindness is devouring my life. Not that that is a bad thing, but it is quickly making writing anything else impossible.

Notes about this chapter: This chapter includes the following: cannibalism, death of small furry animals and children, gore, warped characters, and what will probably be a confusing ending to at least a few of you, which will be later explored in Chapter 3. Also, the name of this chapter is a shout out to my favorite line of all time, it's from IT by Stephen King: 'Haunt, a feeding place for animals.' I thought that such a quote was quite perfect for this fic. I hate to say it, but a sequel for Beyond the Looking Glass is already going through my mind. Naturally, I can't speak of even the plot until this fic is finished since I don't believe in spoilers. Whether it will have to be housed in the original fiction section because I've killed off all the Gundam Wing characters will be seen at the end of this story. This chapter really got away from me, eh? Unlike The Road to Kindness, this is much harder to write, for some reason, but I still ended up writing more than I had intended. And now there's unrequited 6+5, how the hell did that happen?! *grumbles* Stupid brain.

Chapter 2: The Feeding Place

April 3, 1992

'Love really can conquer anything,' Chris thought to herself as she and her lover, no, scratch that, _husband_ walked through the small village of Nasue. That word, 'husband', made her feel giddy, lightheaded as though she was up someplace high. She had always been a dreamer, even after childhood had faded into the jaded years of high school. Unlike other children her age, Chris had never played with others. Her days had been spent on porches, simply staring out into the sky and imagining that she was somewhere else, some place fanciful. But, at the same time that she was a dreamer, she had also always been very pessimistic. She had always seen her dreams as just that, things that were beautiful and wonderful but would never happen, so she quickly gave up on ever achieving them, but that had ended when she had met Ralph.

Chris was what was popularly called an 'army brat'. Her father was General Septum, a stern man that had only ever followed the rules and expected everyone else to do the same. She had lived in a strict household, constantly moving from country to country, never staying at one place for more than a few months, and when her mother had died of breast cancer, her father had gone from simply strict to overbearing and protective. No matter what she did, it was never good enough. She had dreamed of running away, but it was one of those things that she knew she would never do. She had made excuses for herself her entire life, that she had nowhere to go, that she wasn't strong enough, but it was simply because she didn't have the willpower. Then, when her father's job had moved them to Tokyo, she had met a man named Ralph Kurt. While her father was away at the base, which was more often than not, she would wander the city. She knew that it was stupid, an European girl like her walking around a crowded Japanese city where anything could happen to her and she would have no one to turn to, but the bright lights and exotic stores enticed her. One day, she had been out walking, like she always did, and had come across a small café. Ralph had been sitting at the outside tables, despite the fact that it was winter, bundled in a heavy coat, drinking a steaming cup of coffee. It was such an odd thing to do when there were warm tables inside that she had to stop and stare. He had smiled at her and told her what a 'wonderful' day it was. She had laughed at the sight of his breath visible in the chilly air and had sat down with him. After that, every day she had joined him for a cup of coffee outside, even when it was raining, and they would talk about themselves. Ralph wasn't wealthy at all, he was simple painter trying to make it by in Japan. He loved to paint the mountains and scenic Shinto shrines of the country side that only Japan could provide. He was the sort of man that her father would hate, she had thought back then, free, without any boundaries or rules, only living hand to mouth. She wasn't quite sure if it was the feeling of freedom in disobeying her father or if it was Ralph's lifestyle that had appealed to her the most, but she had fallen hard for the man. A year had passed, the longest stretch of time Chris had ever stayed in one place and she was glad for it, and she and Ralph had continued to date, kissing and holding hands mostly since they both agreed that they didn't want to rush things and if they did have sex, it would be on their wedding night. Three weeks ago, her father had caught them on his way home, past that café and had realized what was going on between them. On the same night that her father had forbidden her to see Ralph ever again, her lover had proposed to her. So, three weeks later, they had eloped, running to the remote town of Nasue.

Never in Chris' life had she disobeyed her father and never had she thought that her dreams would be possible, yet both seemed so easy by her love's side. Her hand felt warm in his larger one as they walked. Last night they had spent the evening the hotel making love. Chris had been a virgin and unbelievably scared, but now she looked upon those moments fondly, glad that she had been able to give herself to the only man she had ever loved. The diamond ring, not expensive, but undeniably beautiful, seemed to burn on her finger, not so much as an accusation, rather like a reminder that she had finally escaped, that for the first time in her life, she had made a decision because she had wanted it, not someone else. They didn't have much money, but that would be ok. For once, she had hopes and dreams that she could actually see coming true and she wouldn't let something like money change that. However, money would help since they no longer had enough to get another hotel room. Ralph planned on spending what they had left to paint and sell in town so they needed to find free shelter. Something like that wasn't easy. People seemed to smile down at them for being young newlyweds, but as soon as they asked for a place to stay, those smiles would disappear. However, one little girl had told them that there was an old house up an old forest road at the edge town that had been abandoned for years, but that the door was said to never be locked.

Ralph's hand tightened on her own as they approached the long, winding path in the deep woods. The child's story seemed far fetched, but Chris also had no doubt that her father would be looking for them and with his connections, it would be easy for him to trail them. Going to a hotel was probably dangerous. She had no idea what her father would do if he ever caught up with them. He had been so furious when he had found out that she was dating without his say so, and to a painter of all things… Braving a long forest road and an old house seemed so little compared to dealing with his fury. After all of this time, she was still terrified of her father and she felt like that wasn't going to change. The path was more scenic than she had thought and she felt herself relax as they walked together, hand in hand. The pine trees that filled the area smelled wonderful and there were several flowers growing because of the warm, spring air. It was actually quite romantic, even as the sun was setting and she knew that soon they would submerged in darkness with only a battery-powered lantern to help them see.

"It's so beautiful," she murmured. Ralph nodded in agreement, smiling at her. Her heart blossomed with love at the expression and she found that she had to kiss him. She didn't care what her father did to them, she would never be apart from Ralph, no matter what.

Chris had traveled all over the world and her father was moderately wealthy, but she had never seen a home like she the one she was staring up at now. It was so huge and massive looking that she had a hard time believing that it was a house and not a hotel. The gate looked like it would take at least ten men to open, but fortunately, it was open just enough for people to go through one by one. The beauty of the forest path was nothing compared to the garden outside of the house, the cherry tree was in full bloom and the rock garden was lovely, though unkempt. Still, the house looked lonely with her knowing that there was no one to live in it. Ralph didn't let go of her hand as he tried the door and they both relaxed when it opened with only slight creak.

It was pitch black inside and Ralph quickly worked the crank on the lantern to light it up. Its light wasn't sufficient to see much, so the two of them stumbled up the steps into the main hallway and felt at the walls until they found an open door to a guest room. The faint light of the lantern bounced off the walls, making the long hallways and nooks and crannies hard to discern, but the lantern was helpful in the smaller guest room. Chris wondered if they would be able to see the house in the morning when the sun rose. She saw with some relief that there was a futon in the corner and, when Ralph opened the closet, there were some old, dusty, moth eaten sheets inside. The holes in the sheets were tiny, so they were still usable, but the part of her that was used to getting the best scoffed at them, but the logical part of her realized that this was the best they could get right now and old sheets were better than no sheets at all.

"We'll spend the night here," Ralph told her as he helped her lay down on the old futon, "and go back to town in the morning."

Chris nodded, snuggling against her husband. The house was old and there were sharp creaking noises going on upstairs that scared her. She was tired from running around all day and hungry, but Ralph's arms were strong around her and she focused on that. She just wished that she could stop the terrible, gnawing hunger and her irritation at Ralph for not being able to do better than old, musty house in the woods as though they were a couple of hermits. Ralph turned off the lantern and the room filled with oppressing darkness. There was a loud creak above their heads and Chris tensed, but her exhaustion allowed her to fall into a fitful sleep filled with terrible, anxious dreams.

Chris woke only a few hours later to find that Ralph was no longer in bed with her. She panicked for a minute, after all, how would she survive on her own? But, she discovered that it was no longer pitch black, because Ralph had turned the lantern back on. She sat up quickly and saw him rooting around in their packs for something, muttering under his breath.

"Where is it?" he was saying in a tight, low voice. Chris' heart pounded as his brown eyes fell on her.

"Where is it?" he said louder.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"My wallet," he said sharply, "I can't find it anywhere."

Her heart beat increased even more. They needed that money to live and Ralph had lost it? Some deep part of her wanted to ask what had woken him up and why he had thought to look for his wallet.

"I don't know, when did you have it last?"

Ralph gave her an intense look.

"I had it when I went to bed and now it's gone," he snapped. Chris narrowed her eyes at him.

"Are you suggesting that I took it? Why on Earth would I steal your wallet?"

"I don't know," he growled and she could see the anxiety and tension in his eyes, "Maybe you'd thought that you'd use it to by yourself some goddamn coffee or a piece of cake! You never think ahead like I do! Fuck it, Chris, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, we can't spend that money on food or we'll have no money afterwards. I don't have any rich daddies to pay the bill for me! When will you ever grow up?"

Chris stood up, her anger and irritation mounting.

"Fuck you, Ralph! If you had any intelligence in that brain of yours, we wouldn't be in this situation! You're married now, why don't you buckle down and get a real job!" she screeched. Ralph growled at her again and she froze. What were they doing? Why did she feel so… angry, so dark inside? It felt like the shadows around the room were choking them, hiding the feelings they had for each other and bringing out their irritation two fold. Ralph paused as well and he ran a shaky hand through his messy hair.

"I'm sorry," he said in a small voice, "I didn't mean to snap like that, it's just that we do really need that money and I know I had it before I went to bed."

"Maybe there's someone else in the house with us," she offered, remember the creaking. She could tell by the incredulous look in his eye that he didn't believe that for a second, but he was too scared of yelling at her again. The two of them sat back down on the futon and he turned off the lantern.

"We just need some sleep, that's all. Everything will be fine in the morning," Ralph said, but when Chris realized that he was talking to himself and not her, his words brought her no comfort.

Chris' watch told her that it was nine in the morning when she woke up again, but there was no sun peaking through the window of the room. Sometime during the night, the moon had broken through the clouds and the room was illuminated with it, making the lantern unnecessary. She stared at her watch again. It had to be broken. There were more shadows now, lurching and terrible and they made her feel ill. This wasn't fair, she thought to herself, she should be in her warm bed with a full stomach, but because of her husband's foolishness, she would probably be hungry for the rest of her life. She didn't deserve this. She loved him, but she could easily admit that this was all his fault. He was supposed to take care of her!

Ralph was sleeping on his side next to her, his back to hers and he felt like a mile away as his arms were wrapped tightly around himself. Chris tried to figure out why it was still dark, why the moon was so bright if it was supposed to be morning. How long had they been in this house? Twelve hours? A day?

'We're trapped,' a voice told her, deep within her mind and she tried to block it out. That wasn't true, her watch was just broken, that was all. Sure, she had had it for ten years and it had never failed her, but things broke.

"We're trapped," Ralph echoed her thoughts.

"What do you mean?" she asked, rolling over to look at his strong back, but he still wouldn't face her. Instead, he was looking at the window, at the moonlit sky.

"I went back to the front door while you were sleeping," he said and she instantly felt betrayed. Why had he left her alone in this place? Was he trying to run away from her, from his responsibility? That seemed so like him, not wanting to brought down by a mere woman… She felt hate for him for the first time in their relationship. He had left her alone, in the dark, had taken the lamp, their only source of light, to leave.

"The door was locked," Ralph said sharply, "we're stuck here unless someone finds us."

Chris felt a giddy sort of pleasure knowing that his plan had been thwarted, but also a sharp sense of fear knowing that they were trapped in the house with no food or water.

"That's impossible," she pointed out, "It wasn't locked when we came in."

"God, don't you listen to anyone?!" he snapped, glaring at her, "the door is locked, end of story!"

Chris glared back at him. How long had he been awake, thinking about running away, she wondered? They lapsed into silence, staring off in opposite directions, without the will to talk to one another.

How long had they been here? Chris' watch told her that it had been two days, but it felt longer. The sun didn't rise, the moon was constant, along with the shadows and the darkness. She felt so hollow, her lips dry and her stomach empty. She wanted something to fill her, anything at all… She realized that they should walk around the house, try to find another way out, but she found that she didn't care. This sort of terrible apathy had filled her and she could only care about her hunger. Ralph refused to speak to her and she didn't feel the urge to do so, either. She felt alone in the house, the two of them secretly hating each other, blaming each other, for what, she wasn't sure. It was Ralph's fault they were trapped. It was her fault for the missing money. It was his fault they had no food. It was her fault that they couldn't talk things out. They had stopped fighting a long time ago, simply staring at the walls of the room, at the lingering shadows and the moon that never left the sky. She was so tired… she just wanted this all to stop. There was some remaining spark inside of her of the love she felt for her husband, but the hunger was consuming her, little by little, like an endless thing. She would never get rid of it, she realized.

'You're going to die in this place,' that dark voice said, it's whispering never ceasing, just like her hunger. She dimly realized that the cruel voice and her hunger were the same. When had things gone so bad? When they had entered the house? When they had come to this town? When they had met at that café? She couldn't figure things out. Ralph watched her out of the corner of his eye, her rocking back and forth as she watched the moon. He stood, but she didn't seem to notice until he was in front of her and suddenly grabbing her thin, white neck.

"What… what are you doing?" she choked out, sharp fear, the first real emotion she had felt in days besides the hunger and anger, filled her and she thrashed.

"I know what you've been doing, he told me," Ralph growled, a crazy look in his eye. She realized that that look had been in his eye since he had realized that the wallet was missing, "that boy, he told me what you've been doing behind my back, you little slut! This was all a joke to you, wasn't it?!"

"Ra… lph… why?" she managed to string the words together, but they were promptly cut off as her husband tightened his grip and her gasps contained no air. Her struggles slowed until she fell into permanent darkness. Neither she nor Ralph saw the small child in the blood stained kimono watching the murderous act with a blank expression on his face.

April 7th, 1992

Septum looked up at the Matsuei Mansion with a dubious expression on his face. He had been looking for his runaway daughter and her bastard of a lover for almost a week now and it appeared that he was finally closing on their trail. He couldn't believe that Chris had done this to him. He had thought that she was a good girl, a little bit of an airhead, yes, but she was also, usually, obedient, just like how he had raised her. Things had been hard for him after the death of her mother, but he had persevered and he had thought that he had succeeded in raising a perfect daughter, but it looked like he had failed and if there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was failure. All he wanted was to bring his daughter back home with him and teach her some respect, he didn't care what happened with that lowlife she had claimed to fallen for. Still, though a child in the small town had told him a 'pretty blonde girl with blue eyes with a scruffy looking man' had come up to this house, he didn't believe that his little girl, who had always feared the dark, would go into this place. But, the gate was open and when he tried the front door, it was unlocked, so he went inside.

The second that Septum went inside of the house, he knew that something was wrong. Besides that, he wasn't looking forward to searching for his wayward child. The house was huge and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the hallways. He saw no indication that anyone had been there in the last two hundred years. Everything was covered with dust and the floorboards creaked under his weight. However, as he walked up the steps and started along the hallway, he heard whispering in one of the guest rooms. He couldn't make out what the person was saying, all he knew was that _someone _was here. He opened the door and went inside, but what he saw made him vomit onto the tatami. He hastily wiped his mouth, trying to compose himself, as he took in the scene. The sunlight streaming through the window didn't leave a single inch to the imagination, making bile churn in his stomach.

The ruffian and his daughter had been here, were still here, in fact. Ralph, that was what his name was, was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He looked horrible, his skin deathly pale, and thin, the bones of his arms jutting out against the skin. He looked like he would break in half with a single punch. There was a smear of brilliant red blood across his mouth that was so vivid against his snowy, bloodless skin that it made Septum want to throw up all over again. The man's eyes were hollow, but he was still alive. His large hands stroked at Chris' dismembered head, which he had cradled in his lap like a stuffed animal. Septum couldn't see her face, but he recognized her short blonde hair easily. Her body had been shoved in the corner, the wood floor and wall stained deeply with her blood. Her body was starting to decay, but it was badly mutilated with huge chunks of flesh ripped out, bite marks covering her once perfect skin as tendons and flesh lay on the floor like a rabid animal had tried to tear her apart. That smear of red on Ralph's mouth filled Septum with the most intense rage he had ever felt.

"Hello, Septum," Ralph said in a flat voice, his fingers stroking Chris' shining blond hair, "Chris and I were just talking about you. She tells the best stories, but I'm sure that you already know that."

The rage crested, making Septum's vision waver into a bright, horrible red. This… thing… had killed his daughter… had eaten her… how long had his daughter's body been in this house, feeding this person that she had once loved?

"You… monster!" Septum bellowed and flew at the other men, his fists raining down on him. Each crack and wet sound of his fists on Ralph's fragile body made him feel so good… he couldn't stop. The anger started to ebb away as he broke bones and flesh and brain matter flew onto the ground, the man's body lying limp. When the anger was all gone, he looked at what he had done. Ralph was very much dead, having no strength left to defend himself, his rip cage and arms broken, his head caved in by the force of Septum's blows. He felt no sorrow for what he had done. With a heavy, sickened heart, he approached the corpse of his daughter. He grimaced as he reached down and unlatched the delicate golden chain around her neck. Her mother had given her the necklace before she had died and he had no intention of leaving it in this place. He would go back into town, he decided. He would tell the truth with only a few white lies. This bastard had murdered and eaten his daughter and he, himself, had gone temporarily insane with grief. The boy was half dead anyway, he probably wouldn't have lived for long. He had killed him out of mercy….

His body shaking, Septum left the grisly scene in the guest room and went back to the front door, but when he tried to open it, it held fast.

"What the hell?" he muttered and slammed at the door, trying to wedge it open, but it was locked fast.

"That's impossible!" he yelled and rammed into the door with his body, but the ancient wood, somehow, was stronger than he was. He was trapped. He screamed in an intense fury, falling onto his knees. He shook his head. He felt like he was going insane. There had to be another way out. A huge, old house like this… there had to be a garden, a courtyard, atrium… something leading outside! He stumbled back to his feet and started to run as fast as he could, as though he thought that by doing so, he could elude his own terrible thoughts and deeds. He found himself, somehow, in a long hallway filled with ropes that never seemed to end. He didn't stop, though he was starting to feel out of breath. Would this house never end? He ran through hallway after hallway until he found himself on a porch leading outside into a huge courtyard. He stopped as he looked up at the sky, the wide open sky and saw the moon. He didn't think about how he couldn't have been running long enough for day to turn into night or how the moon couldn't possibly be full when there had been a half moon out last night, he only laughed, almost insanely, as he saw that he was outside. Now, he just needed to get back into town.

It was hard moving through the yard. The porch and most of the ground was covered in twisting, gnarled green vines that had tiny red flowers sprouting out of them. They were thin, but strong and he almost tripped several times. The courtyard was huge and beautiful, even the ancient stone well, but he had never cared much for beauty and simply tried to look for a way out of this horrible place. As he stumbled towards the well, he cried out when he felt something sharp graze the top of his head. He looked up and saw a large crow flying over head. It swooped low again and he ducked, his eyes following it as it flew over to a figure that was standing by the well, a figure that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The person was dressed all in white, the space behind it seeming distorted, but Septum wrote it off as an illusion. He saw the person's long brown hair and assumed it was a woman at first, but as he took a few steps forward, he realized that it was a boy. The crow landed softly on the boy's shoulder and the apparition stroked its head fondly. He was beautiful, Septum realized, his skin pale and his oddly colored eyes piercing, but when he got closer, he saw the horrible wounds on its body and any cries for help were caught in his throat as he realized that no person could just be standing there with such wounds so nonchalantly, but his eyes still refused to believe what they were seeing as clear as day. Septum saw that the boy didn't have just one crow, but dozens, surrounding him like loyal dogs around their master. His other hand had something clenched in it, probably food, as his other petted the bird on his shoulder.

"P-please, help me," Septum heard himself ask, even though he had no desire for the ghost's assistance. A ghost… that was what this thing was, he was sure, even though a stubborn part of himself refused to believe it. The boy finally seemed to notice him, his strange eyes staring at him, and he smiled, but the expression only sent a violent tremor down Septum's spine.

"Hunger is such a terrible thing," the ghost said, his voice echoing and distorted like through a radio and Septum realized, in fear, that it was partially due to the strangulation mark on his throat. His voice was so beautiful, but it was horrible, too.

"Loneliness is the worst sort of hunger," the boy continued, his voice turning sad and Septum could indeed hear the loneliness in it. He was not an affectionate person, but the tone of his voice tore through the older man and he wanted to help him somehow.

"They're starving, you know, my crows," he stroked the bird's ebony feathers and the other birds started to screech, as though in agreement.

"They've been surviving off of the mere scraps I give them, but it's not enough."

Septum took a terrified step back as the distortion behind the boy cleared into something that his eyes just couldn't understand. Protruding from the boy's back, like hundreds of hungry parasites, were ghosts, mutated, silently screaming, some laughing hysterically, some clearly not human. The only word that came to his mind at that moment was 'evil.'

The boy's slender, pale hand unfurled and he saw what he was holding. It was his daughter's finger. He didn't know how he knew that, but the nail was well manicured and a beautiful diamond ring was on it, the bone jutting out of the mangled flesh.

"No…" Septum cried, tears tracking down his cheeks, as the boy fed the crow on his shoulder the finger and the black bird grasped it in its sharp beak then swallowed it, ring and all, in one gulp. He whirled and started to run, but one of the vines tripped him and he fell to the ground, the vine twisting around his ankle like a live creature, and he couldn't wrestle his foot free. He heard the rustle of fabric by his ear and saw white cloth out of the corner of his eye as the ghost was suddenly right next to him, kneeling by his side.

"But the dead are the hungriest of all," he heard a whisper and saw two pairs of feet directly in front of him. He looked up sharply and saw Ralph and Chris standing there, her head somehow reattached, their bodies mangled and limbs dangling like broken marionettes. Their jaws were gaping wide and he could see their teeth and the hunger in their skinny, emaciated bodies. As hundreds of crows descended onto the terrified man, the once silent air of the courtyard was filled with Septum's screams.

June 8th, 2066

Relena, Zechs, Wufei, Trowa, Quatre, and Heero all covered their ears as the laughter pieced through their minds in mad harmony, but through the laughter, they all heard, and felt, the suddenly loud crashing noise that shook the floor under the feet.

"What was that?" Relena asked, her eyes wide with fear, not wanting to know the answer to that question at all. This wasn't real… it was just an old house and she was just dreaming, that was it… Zechs' own eyes widened in realization of what was happening.

"Downstairs, now!" he barked as he ran out of the room, the teenagers following him downstairs, through the long winding hallways. It seemed to take forever to get to the front door and Relena felt like screaming again when Zechs tried to open it, only to find it locked fast.

"No!" she cried, but saw that it was useless when her brother slammed his body against the old door, only to have it not budge an inch, as though it were made of metal instead of ancient wood.

"That's impossible… there has to be a way out!" she shoved against the door, which she imagined was laughing at their pathetic attempts. Quatre walked shakily over to the window. Of course it was impossible, but he wasn't surprised. What was he doing here? He could feel the shadows closing around them and knew that it had nothing to do with his sixth sense. Somehow, he knew what he would find when he looked out the window and that they were trapped, but the sight still terrified him.

"We can never leave," he murmured.

"What is it?" Trowa asked as he stood by his lover's side. He paled when he saw what Quatre was seeing.

"No…" he whispered.

"It doesn't matter if we find a way out of this house," Quatre told Relena who was looking progressively more and more shaky and out of control, "the gate is locked."

"That's impossible!" she cried out in dismay again, pushing Quatre to the side so she could look out the small window. Her heart raced and clenched as she saw that the huge front gate was firmly closed.

"Even if we get outside, it would take twice as many people just to wedge it open again," Trowa pointed out, his voice oddly calm given the situation.

"But it's impossible!" Relena protested stubbornly as though she thought that her logic would open the gate again, "a simple gust of wind couldn't have pushed it closed!"

"It's also impossible for an unlocked door to close and lock itself," Zechs said in a low voice, looking at the door with an expression of betrayal.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Quatre said coldly to Relena, "The possible, the impossible, time, even life and death, none of those things mean anything in this place. You saw that ghost, just like the rest of us, you know this house's history. Do you honestly think it was the wind that trapped us here?"

"It doesn't matter," Zechs tried to stay positive, "Ghosts or no ghosts, we will get out of here, we just need to keep our heads on straight. Our parents know where we are, they'll come looking for us by tonight, tomorrow morning at the very latest. We just need to stay alive until then."

"Why can't we just burn the damn place down?" Relena asked, "We have candles and lighters, let's just burn this fucking place to the ground!"

Her friends stared at her, having never heard her swear before.

"Forget it," Wufei snorted, "What are you going to do if this works? Say by burning the house down, we get out, with is just as stupid as us trying to open that gate on our own, what are you going to tell the cops? The ghosts made you do it? Arson's a crime, Relena."

"We're not setting the house on fire!" Heero snarled, the thought of them destroying the house filled him with sickness and dull rage.

"Heero, we're a bit more concerned with staying alive than the beauty of this house! I'll admit, I was skeptical about this place, but seeing is believing and I don't think that we were all imagining what just happened. If we don't get out of here, that… thing will never leave us alone!"

"Burning the house down will probably never work anyway. We're trapped and if we set this place on fire, we still won't be able to get out and we'll end up burning to death!" Zechs pointed out, amazed at his own sister's stupidity.

"But what if it's like in horror movies? People burn down the haunted house, the ghosts go away, and all of the doors open!"

"We'll burn faster than the ghosts," Trowa grumbled.

"This isn't the movies, Relena," Zechs scolded, "What will you do if the doors don't open once we start the fire? We'll all be trapped in here and burn to death."

Relena bit her lip, realizing just how dangerous such a plan would be.

"Why don't we break the window?" she pointed the window they had been looking out of. It was just big enough and level enough for one of them to slip through and the only thing blocking their way were cross shaped, thin pieces of wood.

"Stand back," Trowa ordered as he grabbed onto the slender-looking wood and started to shake the bars violently. To their shock and dismay, it was the same as with the door, the wood looked old and feeble, but it didn't move an inch. Quatre seemed to be the only one not surprised by this.

"I told you," he murmured, "it's not going to let us go, especially not through something so obvious. This thing is more powerful than nature itself. It's evil."

Trowa and Heero looked at Quatre in worry, but the others ignored him, not wanting to believe what he was saying.

"It's like that movie, Rose Red," Relena said. They stared at her in confusion and she sighed.

"Doesn't anyone watch old movies anymore? This people are trapped in a haunted house and try to get out by breaking a glass window, but no matter what they throw at it, the glass won't break," she gave a seething look at Quatre, "They discover that the house is channeling a psychic girl's powers and the only way to get out is to knock her out and run while she's unconscious. Maybe that's why this ghost is after us! It's because of Quatre! I mean, he's the one who was seeing things before the rest of us! All we have to do is knock him out and we can go home!" she reasoned excitedly. Trowa stood in front of his lover.

"You're not doing a fucking thing to him! If you want to knock him out and leave him alone here, that's murder and you'll have to knock me out, too!" Trowa growled at her.

"We're not knocking anyone out!" Zechs snapped, glaring at his sister. He knew that she was afraid and she reacted badly to fear, but he still couldn't believe how selfish she was being.

"I was seeing things at the same time as Quatre," Heero pointed out, "If you really think that our visions are causing this ghost's hostility, you'll have to leave me here, too."

Relena instantly deflated. She decided that she could live without Quatre or Trowa, but there was no way she was going to leave Heero in this place.

"Ok, so, we can't go out through the windows or the front door, but what about the Courtyard? Maybe there's a way out through there or maybe the ghosts are only in the house? Maybe once we get outside, they won't bother us," Zechs moved along, not wanting his sister's friends to turn on her. Wufei shrugged at this suggestion. He didn't relish in the idea of running around anymore as his leg was beginning to throb, but he had the sudden urge to see the sky, even if it was too dark out. Trowa put an arm around Quatre's shoulders and urged him forward.

"It sounds better than staying here."

Quatre nodded, but still seemed unsure.

Relena scratched at the gash on her arm as they walked deeper into the mansion. It had started to bleed a few minutes ago and refused to stop, but the amount of blood was small for a wound so big, like that of a paper cut. Still, it was starting to hurt and she somehow knew that all of her friends were going through the same thing. She had never been in a survival situation before. She had watched horror movies before and had always assumed that in this situation, she would be the 'tough girl', the one that the hero fell in love with because she always kept her head and knew just what to do when the monster came, but right now, she just felt scared and tired and she wanted very much to go home. She couldn't understand how her brother kept his optimism and logic and how Heero and Wufei stayed so calm. She felt like she was going mad with each step as they walked deeper and deeper. She thought that the huge place would never stop and that they had been walking for hours when they finally got to the huge, sliding door leading outside to the courtyard. As Heero opened the door, which moved smoothly, Relena was momentarily breathless at the sight of the area. Past the oaks and cherry trees, she could see the dark outline of the mountains in the distance, even though it was night. The huge, fat moon in the sky made their flashlights unnecessary, so they all switched them off. The cherry trees were in full bloom and piles of pink petals lay under them. The well in the middle of the courtyard was large and made of old stone, but strong and intact. There was a solid fence running around the huge courtyard and an old wooden door that, Relena was giddy to think of, probably led outside. The most startling thing, however, were the huge, massive tangles of deep green vines that covered the ground and climbed up ever structure that they could find, with the exception of the well. They looked like snakes, like they could come alive at any moment and, in the dark, their tiny red flowers looked like drops of blood. Wufei wanted to bend down and pluck one of the flowers. He had always loved flowers, though he had been made fun of by his cousins for it and he couldn't remember having ever seen flowers like these anywhere else, even in books, but they gave the impression of something that was too beautiful, something poisonous, and he didn't dare touch them. They moved very slowly and very carefully through the mess of vines, careful not to trip on any of them. The last thing they needed was for someone to get a concussion. Heero lagged behind them, enthralled by the flowers. He wasn't as logical as Wufei was and he bent down to touch one of the petals. They were soft against skin. He stood up and realized, in a panic, that he could no longer see his friends. He blinked in the bright light of the sun. What had just happened? The sun was high in the sky and when he looked around, things were… different.

There weren't as many vines now, and the old well didn't look quite so old. Some of the cherry trees were smaller, others weren't there at all.

"Mariemeia, don't run far!" a deep voice rang in his ear from behind him and he whirled, a vine tangling around his foot, making him fall on his butt. He looked up onto the face of a very tall man with light brown hair, blue eyes, and European features. He sputtered, trying to find words, trying to figure out what was going on, when the man walked right by him like he didn't see him.

'That's because he _can't _see me,' Heero realized in shock. 'I'm not really in this place… no, more like I'm not really in this _time,_' Heero thought. A vision… it had to be, just like the ones that Quatre had. Maybe they were right, Trowa and Quatre, maybe almost dying had done something to him, had left a permanent mark on him and now, he was able to see this… whatever this was. But, how was he supposed to get out of it? Would he be stuck in this time, in this vision, forever? He tried to remember everything that Quatre had told him about his psychic visions, but nothing came to him. He watched as the man ran after a small, red headed girl with bright blue eyes that was running towards the well, a tall, beautiful German woman with long brown hair and soft brown eyes walking swiftly behind him. Their names came to him instantly, Treize, Mariemeia, and Une. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. Was this the ghost's work? If it was… what did he want him to see? Une picked up her three year old daughter and looked back at her husband.

"Do you really think it is a good idea to move into this house?" she asked. Heero dimly realized that what he was looking at had happened sometime in either the late 1800s or early 1900s, based on their clothing.

"What's the matter?" Treize asked, "This is the perfect place for my studies. It's quiet, with lot's of room for Marie to play. Look at these flowers, I've never seen anything like them, aren't they beautiful?" he said excitedly. Heero snorted. The man reminded him of Wufei, only less composed, but so enthralled by flowers. He couldn't blame him, though, they were very beautiful, even if by touching one of them, he had ended up in this place…

"But that's the problem!" Une pointed out, "There's so much room. I know you didn't have to pay a cent to be here, but what if one of us gets lost?"

"That won't happen," Treize assured her, "I have a map and we won't be using most of the house, anyway. I wasn't getting anything done in orchards and greenhouses, you know that. How can I call myself a botanist if I don't get out in the field?" he kissed her cheek, "Tell you what, if I'm recognized for my work, I'll name these flowers after you."

Une rolled her eyes at him.

"Honey, do me a favor and don't go giving my name to weeds."

"These aren't weeds!" Treize said, laughing as Mariemeia made a face at him.

"Can Tilly play out here, too?" the child asked, prepared to pout if her father refused. He smiled.

"Sure thing, little one, your kitty can play out in the yard, just make sure she doesn't get out of the yard, ok?"

Marie nodded eagerly. Treize kneeled down among the vines, running his fingers over them. A breeze filtered through the cherry trees and it almost appeared as though the vines were shuddering at his touch.

"They're so beautiful," he murmured, "just lovely."

Heero followed his gaze to the bright red flowers and blinked, his eyes watering, as he saw something underneath his vision, superimposed, like double exposure. He closed his eyes, trying to clear them, only to find that by doing so, he could see it in his entirety. A gasp escaped him as he saw the ghost, no, Duo. He was standing in what looked like a huge a cave. All along the ground were those vines again, but they didn't have any flowers, they were bare, each and every one that Heero saw. There was someone standing behind Duo, but he couldn't see him, he reasoned that was because the vision was what Duo remembered, or what he wanted him to see and if Duo didn't see the person, then he couldn't, either. Cuts started to appear on his arms, huge, gaping wounds and Duo screamed, making Heero flinch.

"No!" he cried. His heart was pounding out of control and every muscle in his body tightened. He couldn't breathe, but he still found himself running towards the ghost as he crumpled to the ground, his blood splattering onto the vines, creating bright red spots on the deep green vegetation. He realized that if he would squint, the vines would like they had bright red flowers…

"Please don't kill me!" Duo screamed in Heero's head, his voice somehow not in the air, but inside of himself. Heero hastily opened his eyes and found himself back in the courtyard, but several days had passed in the vision. Treize was sitting on the steps leading into the courtyard, a journal balanced on his knee as he watered the vines in front of him. He wrote in the journal as he watched the vines soak up the water like sponges. His blue eyes were bright with energy, but Heero read it as fanaticism. Suddenly, his finger caught on the edge of the paper and he cut himself.

"Shit!" the man swore as several droplets of blood fell on the vines. Then, the vines _moved._ At first Heero thought he was just seeing things and he was sure that Treize had felt the same way, all those years ago, but the vines actually coiled around where the blood had fallen, like sea gulls around trash, as though begging for more, and the blood disappeared. A high pitched sound filled the air, like small children trying to mimic the sound of laughter that didn't know how. Treize stood and took a step away from the plants.

"What on earth?" he murmured. He turned and grabbed a drumstick of chicken that Une had given him for lunch and tossed it into the air. Lightning fast, like a rattlesnake striking at its prey, a vine caught the meat and brought it deep into the mass of vines at Treize's feet. Heero winced as he heard the sounds of sucking, that odd, high-pitched chirping and giggling, and the hideous crunching of bone. Then there was nothing, the drumstick was simply gone.

"Shit…" Heero whispered, "They're alive. Everything in this house… it's all alive…"

Treize could no longer contain his excitement at his discovery, flesh eating vines, and he ran inside. When he came back, Heero realized, disturbed, that it was actually several weeks later. There were more and more vines growing around the courtyard and they seemed more vibrant and alive than they did in Heero's time.

'That's because they feed on blood,' Heero thought in disgust, 'and they haven't had any good food in awhile.'

He watched as Treize walked out in the yard with a small calico cat in his arms.

"There's no need to be afraid, Tilly," Treize said in a soothing voice to the mewing feline. Heero's eyes widened as he watched Treize let go of the cat and she fell into the mess of vines. They swarmed her as she hissed and screeched at them, twining around her svelte body and tightening, her violent noises swiftly silenced as one vine wrapped around her neck and twisted it until it snapped. The other vines soon joined in, covering the cat, _eating _it, their flowers looking quite beautiful in the day light.

"Did you like that?" Treize cooed to the plants and was rewarded with chirping laughter. Heero watched as time passed again, but he couldn't tell how long, he just knew that it had come and gone. Treize disappeared from his sight and Heero became terrified when, for several seconds, he was alone in the courtyard, alone with the plants. But, he always came out. Heero watched in horror as, day after day, Treize would come out into the yard with an animal to feed his beloved plants, a crow, a rabbit, dogs, and cats… When they fed, he would sit on the steps and scribble frantically in his journal and when they were done, they would whisper.

'_Kill them,' _the plants chirped in a high pitched frenzy, sounding like a child as they cackled and giggled with glee, '_we're so hungry. Kill them…' _

Heero covered his ears and shut his eyes tightly, but the dark, the blindness, terrified him and he opened them again. Talking, eating plants… he wasn't surprised that by the next time Treize made an appearance, he and his wife looked haggard and worn thin, but what he wasn't expecting was the man coming through the door with his little girl in his arms, the both of them covered in blood. Heero felt bile rise in his throat at the sight of the girl's slit throat. Une was at Treize's heels, looking much like a corpse, tugging at her husband's arm.

"You bastard! What are you doing?! Give her back to me!" she screeched insanely. Treize appeared nonchalant about the dead child in his arms or his screaming wife.

"It has to be done, Une. They need to be fed. How can I continue my research if they starve?" he asked calmly, dropping the corpse into the twining ball of vines. The vines slithered and cried eagerly as the warm flesh fell into their mists.

"No, you murderer!" the longhaired woman screeched and ran after her daughter into the huge tangles of vegetation. Heero tried to look away from the inevitable, but he couldn't. It was too late as the vines swarmed the woman and her dead child, wrapping around their legs and pulling them to the ground like wild dogs with dead deer, wrapping around them over and over, tearing their flesh off the bones and the meat disappearing underneath them somehow, until there was nothing left to tear and Heero and Treize watched as the vines seemed to dissolve anything that was left until there was absolutely nothing. Treize's face looked completely hollow as he watched, dark circles under his eyes.

'This is what this place does to people,' Heero realized, 'it drives them mad. It's going to do the same to us.'

"It's not enough, is it? You need more, don't you?" Treize murmured, taking a large butcher knife out of his jacket, and he stabbed himself in the abdomen with it, ripping through himself. Heero squeezed his eyes shut, unable to take anymore, and he heard the sound of hot entrails falling to the ground, followed by the screaming laughter of the plants as they ate.

Heero's eyes shot open and he almost screamed in relief as he saw his friends, still not even at the well, as they walked. He jumped out of the tangle of vines, feeling the overwhelming urge to throw up. He clutched at his stomach. No more… he wanted out of here… but… Duo… what had happened in that other vision? The silence of the night and the darkness was unbearable after what he had 'seen' and he ran to catch up with his friends and slowed to a halt in front of a mirror standing a few feet from the well. He shook his head, wanting to close his eyes as he saw the… thing… the thing that looked like Duo, but wasn't Duo, not the cute boy that had reached for him inside the mirror, the horrible thing that had locked them in, the one with the demons rooted to his back. No one else seemed to notice him as the specter simply stood there on the other side of the mirror and watched them. Empty violet eyes met his and he froze. That stare… he hated it so much, it made him feel like he was going insane, like he should rip out his veins to make everything stop.

"Why?" he whispered, "Just stop this!" he begged. The ghost grinned as though it had a terribly funny joke to tell.

"_All his fault," _it said in a distorted, twisted voice, "_all Duo's fault. He should have died… but he didn't want to sooo badly," _the thing in the mirror jeered, on the verge of cruel laughter. Heero felt an intense rage fill him.

"Shut the fuck up!" he snapped. The others looked back at him and Relena screamed when she saw what was in the mirror.

"No one wants to die, why should he have been any different!" Heero yelled. This was so stupid, a small voice told him, he was arguing with a ghost. The thing just continued to smirk.

"_He should have died long, long before… but that stupid father of his… so lenient, so sentimental…" _the ghost giggled, the sound filling all of them with fear, "_He should have killed him when he was supposed to…"_

Heero's anger surged and he picked up a rock. With a below of rage and threw it at the mirror but, to his dismay, it only bounced off of its surface. However, the ghost instantly disappeared, leaving Heero panting and glaring at his own image.

"What was that?" Relena asked in a shaky voice.

"Nothing," Heero snapped, walking past her, "Let's just find a way out of here."

Zechs nodded at him and they headed towards the door at the other end of the courtyard. Wufei took a deep breath as Heero reached for the handle, a voice inside of his head jeering that if the front door was closed, this one was going to be locked, too. There was a collective gasp from all of them as the door opened with a loud creak, followed by Relena dissolving into tears when they saw what lay beyond the courtyard door.

Quatre didn't feel surprised about anything anymore. He felt like he already knew everything that was going to happen before it happened. He had known that the window wouldn't break and he had known that they were trapped for good. It was hard to be optimistic when you knew that you were doomed. They had been doomed the second they had stepped through the gate last morning. He had checked his watch. If it wasn't broken, then they had already spent a day here and it was now noon the next day, but it was dark and the moon was shining down on them. If he thought about that for long, he would go insane, just like if he thought about the ghosts in the mirrors. So, when he had gotten the distinct feeling that opening the door at the end of the courtyard would be pointless, he wasn't exactly panicked about it. He hated himself for it, but it felt like a large part of himself had already given up. The other part of him kept looking over at Trowa and he felt a strong sense of fear and love for him. He wanted to get out of here before this place did what it did best; destroy them all.

Relena felt like sobbing when they opened the door and found, not woods, but a long stretch of swamp. There were a few trees here and there, but it was mostly water. She watched in anxiety as her brother picked up a stick and dipped it into the water, only to lose the whole thing.

"There's no way we're getting through this," Zechs said, "it's too deep, too long, and too cold to swim in."

"What should we do, then?" Wufei asked, trying to keep his voice calm even though he could feel the panic starting to build. This had been too good to be true, he had known that, but he had still enjoyed that little bit of hope when the door had been unlocked. Zechs trudged back to the well and the others followed, wanting to hear what the older boy thought. They all sat at the edge of the well carefully, not wanting to fall in, except for Heero who steered clear of it. Zechs turned to Quatre.

"Can I see your dad's cell phone?" he asked. Quatre nodded and handed the satellite phone to the longhaired man. That sense of knowing came over him and he knew that the phone was useless, but he still let hope squirm through the apathy that was eating at his emotions.

"Shit," Zechs swore, "there's no service."

"How is that possible?" Relena whispered, feeling tears forming in her eyes, "It's a satellite phone, there has to be service."

Zechs seemed to ignore her, handing the useless device back to Quatre.

"Well, we have a gate that is too heavy to close, closing on itself, a door that locking itself, windows made of unbreakable wood, a door that leads to a deep swamp, and now we have a phone that is supposed to always have service fail us. I think its pretty obvious that something, or someone, wants us to stay," Wufei said bitterly, "so I ask again, what now?"

Zechs ran a hand through his bangs, wanting to comfort the Chinese boy but not knowing how. Relena curled her fingers around the edge of the well and paused at small grooves that she felt there. She looked down at her hand and saw long scratches going down into the well on the stone surface. She shuddered as she looked down into the darkness. It felt like looking into an abyss, like looking down into hell.

"We're going to wait here for our parents," Zechs decided, "We can go to bed and in the morning, we'll explore some more. I know nobody wants to do that, but it's important to keep busy."

No one had anything to say or contest about that, so they followed the older boy back into the house and to their 'bedroom.'

Despite the gnawing exhaustion that was eating away at them at that point from the confusion of time and fear and adrenaline, none of them could sleep. The knowledge that it was still not 'night', according to his watch, Quatre couldn't let himself doze off. The roof above their heads creaked like someone was walking above them, which was impossible. Relena had started to doze off when the sound of a door opening had made her wide awake again. Sometimes in the few hours when they were all lying down, they would hear people whispering through the walls and the crazy laughter of a small child. It was impossible to sleep with such maddening noises. Quatre snuggled against Trowa's chest and Relena curled up into a miserable ball in the corner of the room. She made a small choking noise when she caught the sight of the mutilated boy in the mirror.

"Ignore it," Zechs told her, looking at the wall, his arms wrapped around his knees, "just ignore it." His voice was tired and resigned, but Relena found that it was difficult to pull her eyes away from the ghost, like watching a car wreck. There was a strong pull, like an inaudible voice screaming at her to look into those flat, terrible violet eyes. How could she possibly sleep with that… thing watching her? She forced herself to look away, but shuddered feeling those eyes burning into her very soul. She looked over at her brother and felt an intense sense of worry for him, at the weary look in his eyes. What if their parents didn't come for them? She hated that thought, but she had to think it. It was ludicrous, of course, their parents were probably already wondering why one of them hadn't called and they would be here in the morning. But… what if morning never came for them? What if they were doomed to live in this night forever? But, that was impossible… right?

All of them jumped as a door upstairs slammed shut. In Trowa's strong arms, Quatre's eyes had finally started to feel heavy and he had been half asleep, but the shocking noise jolted him out of it and he felt wide awake again, his heart pounding. Duo's image was gone from the mirror, but he could still feel him, watching all of them. His skin itched to leave the horrible place, knowing how wrong and unnatural it was. He felt trapped, like a rabbit in a snare, just waiting for the hunter to come along and slit his throat.

"We should leave this room," Wufei suddenly said shakily.

"It doesn't matter," Quatre murmured, Trowa's comforting hand squeezing his shoulder, "he's just going to follow us no matter where we go," he pointed out, "This isn't like running away from a serial killer. He's a ghost, he's in the wood of this place, no matter where we go, he'll be there, if he wants to be."

Zechs suddenly got to his feet.

"He can follow us all he wants, but if I'm not going to sleep, then I'm going outside," he said gruffly.

"Zechs, don't!" Wufei begged, standing to stop him, but paused at the blue eyed man's intense look.

"I need to see the sky," Zechs murmured.

The moon was still fat in the black sky when they traced their steps back to the courtyard.

'There isn't much of a sky to see,' Relena thought bitterly. Heero's eyes were plastered to the mirror as the walked past it, sure that he would see Duo or some other specter in the flat glass, but there was nothing there this time. As they stepped near the well, Relena gasped, feeling something ripping open her shoulder. Her mind supplied that it was just another trick, but she paused to push her shirt away from her shoulder and fear made her stomach quiver. The deep slash over her shoulder was no trick or illusion, nor was the blood that was sluggishly leaking out of it, trailing down her arm.

"No," she whispered in shock. Her first impulse was to scratch at it as it started to ache and itch, but the blood scared her enough to ignore the impulse. When she looked at the others, they were all wearing various degrees of discomfort and Trowa's shirt had a spot of blood on his stomach that was slowly growing, spreading like disease. Was that what this was? Some sort of horrible disease? Would the cuts just keep spreading and spreading until they bled to death? Relena watched in horror as a cut suddenly appeared over Quatre's cheek. It was like watching an invisible knife scrape over his skin, not deep enough to kill, but enough to send a stream of blood down his face.

Trowa saw the blood and panicked, ripping off a piece of his shirt to soak it up. Quatre smiled at him in reassurance, pressing the cloth to his cut. Heero seemed to be the only one not in pain, truthfully, he was terrified. All of his friends were suffering, but he didn't feel any cuts. The only one he had was the one on his hand from touching the mirror, but unlike the others' wounds, his was healing rather well. It didn't make sense. Why wasn't he being cut as well and why were the cuts there to begin with? Relena noticed Heero's strange look, but the question in her mind was so vague, just starting to form, that she couldn't quite find the words to ask it. She flinched as something brushed against her leg, but when she looked down, she only saw the vines on the ground and shrugged it off as her own imagination.

Zechs ignored the urge to scratch at the newly formed cut on the back of his neck and trudged forward to the well. Even out here, he felt claustrophobic, as though he had never left the house. At first, he had thought that Quatre was simply panicking with all those terrible things he had said, but he knew it was the truth. They were never going to get out of the house. He knew physical things like how much pressure wood could withstand before it snapped, but things like ghosts and barriers that couldn't be broken, no matter the force, he just didn't understand. How could you escape a place that had no laws? He felt no safer outside, looking at the impossible, never ending moon, than he had been inside, listening to the sounds and seeing Duo everywhere. He knew that they wouldn't be safe until they left the mansion entirely.

Relena walked past her brother, who was just staring up at the moon as though he was in shock. She sat on the edge of the well, trying to use the feel of the cold stone under his hands to curb her own shaking, and the sudden intense need to just scream. She had never liked closed spaces, even as a kid, and even though the house was huge, it was worse than being locked in a closet.

"We should have something to eat," Trowa suggested, "we're all tired, but we need to keep our energy up more than anything."

Wufei nodded in agreement and handed out the sandwiches, pastrami and cheese this time. He realized that he had no idea how long they had been trapped here for. Such a thought was strange to him and sounded stupid, even in his own head. The moon was still out, so it was still only night, but it seemed much longer to him. Still, the sandwiches were still good, so it couldn't have been too long. But… that was silly, wasn't it? If it had been longer than a night, their parents would have come for them already.

As Relena chewed on her sandwich, her eyes glanced over to the mouth of the well and the dark abyss that seemed to go on and on. She flinched as she felt another brush against her leg, but, predictably, there were only the vines. However, as she kept her gaze locked on the green vegetation, she could have sworn she saw it move. She looked back into the tunnel-like well and a severe chill almost overwhelmed her. It was like looking into the very heart of Hell.

_Jump! _A high pitched voice that didn't actually sound like a voice, screeched through her mind, followed by what sounded like children laughing. She squeezed her eyes shut. She was going mad… Her crystal blue eyes shot open again as one of the vines wrapped around her foot.

Relena's loud scream made everyone jump, even Wufei, who glared at her as she jumped to her feet, dropping her sandwich, and tore the vine off of her.

"What is wrong with you?" he demanded, annoyed that she had scared him. They had enough to be frightened about without her freaking out at every little shadow.

"The vines, they're alive!" she screamed. Wufei gave Zechs a worried look, which the silver haired man returned. The two of them had been waiting for one of their small group to snap and it seemed somehow fitting that it would be Relena. However, Heero only looked at her as though he had been expecting it, not that she was crazy.

"That's the stupid thing I've ever heard!" Wufei snapped, "The vines are _not _alive, are you even listening to yourself?!"

"Shut up, Wufei!" Heero snapped back at him. The remark made Relena blush and she felt her heart flutter.

"They are alive," Heero's voice was strong and solid, "Look at the sandwich," he ordered. Wufei looked down and the color drained from his face, the expression echoed on the faces of Zechs, Trowa, and even Quatre, though the blonde had been almost positive of what he would see, even before he saw it. Tendrils of green vine were wrapped around the sandwich, like a snake around a mouth, and bits of it disappeared under the vine, accompanied by sickening, loud, wet sounds.

"Oh my god," Wufei whispered, taking a step back, away from the terrible sight, but he almost screamed himself when he stepped on more vines and he realized that they were completely surrounded by them. Quatre watched him with flat, expressionless eyes.

"It's like I said," he intoned softly, with no hint of boasting or arrogance, "Duo will follow us no matter where we go. He's everywhere, in every piece wood, every leaf. He's never going to let us go."

Relena wanted to protest, but she could physically feel the truth in his words. Even now, though she couldn't see him, she could feel the malicious spirit watching them. Still, the fear that she felt knowing that was overshadowed by the fact that Heero, though subtle, had stood up for her. It was enough to make her heart ache.

"What does he want?" Wufei asked in crazed desperation, "If he just wants to kill us, why not get over with? Is he just playing with us?!"

"It doesn't matter," Trowa reminded them, "Our parents will come in the morning."

Relena shook her head frantically.

"It's never going to be morning."

Trowa gave her a sharp look.

"She's right," Quatre agreed, "It's an endless night. He won't let it end."

"That's ridiculous!" Zechs said sharply. He couldn't take anymore of the craziness and took off for the door back into the house. The others followed him, but Wufei watched Heero closely. There was something wrong with his friend, something that wasn't entirely… earthly. He had no cuts like they did. At first he had assumed the one on his palm was one of them, but their cuts refused to heal and stop bleeding while Heero's had stopped bleeding after only an hour. Then, he had shown no shock at learning about the vines. Something was definitely going on, but he had no idea what it could be, something that he hated. That feeling of not knowing was what was driving him mad, little by little.

"Morning should have come by now, so it's not completely ridiculous," Quatre tried to point out as Zechs ignored him.

"They'll come for us," Zechs said stubbornly.

Wufei lagged behind as they moved through the mansion, towards their room, keeping his eyes on Heero. He vowed that he would figure out what was happening with him. In a situation like this, he needed to solve something tangible before he lost himself to the impossibilities of the mansion. However, as they passed by one of the many 'crossroads' of hallways, a glimmer of white caught his eye. His coal eyes widened and he froze.

'It can't be,' he told himself. Pale, delicate feet made the floorboards creak as the figure passed down the hallway. It moved slowly, but he only had a split second to see it. Still, he saw it clear as day. The figure was a woman with short black hair and Asian features, dressed in a beautiful, white, billowing gown. His body moved, ready to chase after her, but in a second, she was gone. A tear tracked down his cheek and his hand twitched, as though it wanted to grab at something that wasn't there.

"Wufei!" Zechs called to him, snapping Wufei out of his daze.

'It can't be,' his thoughts repeated as he followed Zechs mindlessly, like a robot or zombie. 'It can't be.'

How Quatre and Trowa managed to fall asleep, Wufei didn't know. He was tired, himself, but sleep had never felt further from his grasp than now. Not only was he terrified of what would happen if he closed his eyes, just for a few minutes, he had too many thoughts whirling in his head to attempt to rest. His eyes were fixed on Quatre and Trowa. They were sleeping in each other's arms, latched onto each other so tightly one of them had to be hurting the other. Wufei smiled bitterly.

'We used to hold each other like that, late at night when it was so dark and lonely, all we could do was hear our hearts beating. Meiran… what are you doing in this horrible place… You escaped, you shouldn't be here, you don't deserve to be here!'

Wufei's hands curled into fists. This wasn't fair. He had only seen the ghost for a second, but he knew that it was her. He was as sure as that as he needed to breathe to live. Chang-Long Meiran… the only woman he had ever loved. It seemed sick that he was seeing her in this place, yet, also, somehow appropriate.

He and Long Meiran had been engaged to be married since the day they had been born. They had been born on the same day and their families had been connected for centuries, so the marriage had been an accepted deal. He and Meiran had grown up as good friends so neither of them had any problem with the engagement. Wufei didn't know who fell for whom first, but by the time they were thirteen, they had already been dating for awhile. Meiran had been the most beautiful girl in the world, smart and strong and just… perfect. However, when they turned thirteen, that perfection had faded. Meiran collapsed one day and his parents had taken her to the hospital, against her parents' wishes. The Longs were old fashioned, believing in family medicine instead of doctors and hospitals. In the end, Meiran had been diagnosed with heart cancer and she only had a few months to live. He blamed her parents, but not as much as he blamed himself. She had been tired for months before that, had grown more and more frail, but her parents had relied too much on remedies that were useless and he had preferred to believe that everything was fine instead of discovering that she was sick.

_Wufei looked down at his fiancé as she slept, her face pinched in pain. His and her parents sat around her futon, watching and waiting for the slight indication that she could be leaving them. Her hair, usually done up in adorable pigtails, was loose and mussed by sweat, the scent of sickness clinging to every strand. She was horribly pale, her skin tight as she had lost a lot of weight in only a few months. She still looked beautiful to him, though, her small body looking so pretty in her white dress, the dress, he was sure, she would die in. Her eyelids fluttered open and he stared into her ebony eyes. _

"_Meiran…" he murmured. She smiled softly at him and his heart clenched when he saw the urge to touch him in her eyes. He met her halfway, holding her thin hand. _

"_Are you in much pain?" he asked. _

"_No, not much," she said in a small, fading voice and he knew that he was lying. He wanted to look away. He couldn't take watching her struggle, just to breathe. He almost wished that she would just die already and get it all over with. _

"_I love you," she whispered, her eyes sliding shut once more. She was no longer able to stay awake for any longer than a few minutes at a time. Wufei composed himself, though he wanted to let his tears fall. He waited patiently for his parents and in laws to leave before letting go. He wanted to yell at Meiran's mother and father to take her to the hospital, where she could get the medicine that she needed to prolong her life, or at least a way to dull her excruciating pain. He watched in torture as his fiancé and best friend moaned in pain in her sleep. He closed his eyes again, his fingers caressing the ring he had put on Meiran's finger. The tears refused to stop as he gripped at her hand._

"_I'm so sorry, love," he whispered painfully._

_The next morning, they all awoke to find that Meiran had died some time that night. _

Wufei's nails dug into his palms, drawing blood as he watched Quatre and Trowa sleep peacefully. It was because of Meiran's death that he had moved to Japan, but he didn't blame her for his current… dilemmas. He turned away from Quatre and Trowa, unable to handle watching the sweet lovers any longer. He could have had that, but now, there was nothing and that goddamn ghost was using his love's death to torment him! He lied on his stomach, his leg aching, but he only wished that he could feel more pain, could have more punishment for being responsible for losing the one good thing in his life.

Heero opened his eyes and found himself back in the courtyard. In the time that he had spent in the mansion, he had accepted the fact that, in order to stay sane, he had to accept things as they were, even if they were impossible. However, the logical part of his mind stubbornly clung to things like time and space and physics, so when he suddenly opened his eyes and found himself outside, he was terrified. Was he stuck back in the vision, or was this something even more awful? He knew that the ghost, Duo, could do whatever he pleased in this place, there didn't have to be a reason for it, but he still searched for one. Ignoring his original impulse to scream, Heero looked around his surroundings. He realized that he should have become accustomed to things like this happening the second he had seen the tortured boy in the mirror, but he felt like he was losing his footing. He didn't understand anything anymore. Why were his friends being cut, but the ghost was sparing him? It didn't make any sense to him. What was even more confusing was his sudden emotional connection to the spirit. He wanted to help him, even knowing that it was Duo holding the doors closed and torturing them this way. He couldn't stand the accusations of the other spirit or the vision of him being cut, his blood spilling on the vines…

Heero's blue eyes widened as he suddenly realized what it was about the courtyard that was bothering him, the thing that was different… there were no vines. There was soft grass under his feet, but not a trace of the sinister, carnivorous vines. That was something else all together… he could _feel _the grass under his feet, could feel the light breeze and smell the blooming cherry blossoms. The last time he had been stuck in a vision, he had only been able to see things, not feel them. The sudden… realness of it was shocking to him. He could hear birds singing in the trees surrounding the mansion and he realized that everything was brand new. The grass and flowers were freshly cut and maintained by an obvious professional, the wood of the mansion looked perfect with not so much as a scratch. The stone of the well was absent of algae, but his eyes widened when he saw the large well.

On the edge of the well sat a young boy about six or seven years old wearing a very familiar, sleeveless, white kimono, with an equally familiar chestnut braid trailing down the child's back, though it must shorter than the ghost's.

'Duo…' Heero thought in shock, 'but he's alive… this isn't a ghost, this is when he was still alive. But… he's just a child…'

The sight of Duo's bare arms as his hands lay on the flat surface of the well, pale and smooth, absent of any of the scars he would get later in life, was heartbreaking. Heero wanted to reach out and touch him, but he didn't dare. Heero walked around the well, so he could look at the child's face. He took a deep breath when he met deep violet eyes that looked right through him.

'He's so beautiful…' Heero thought. Those eyes were different than the ghost's, bright, alive, filled with childish excitement for everything around him. The bells tied to his ankle jingled as the boy swung his legs. Suddenly, Duo stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled loudly. Heero's eyes widened as he watched a large crow fly toward the boy and land on his outstretched hand. He felt a chill crawl up his spine, but he wasn't sure why.

"Chii-chan!" the boy smiled wide, petting the crow on the head with his other hand. Heero's breath stuck in his throat at the sound of his voice. It was first time he had heard it, undistorted by death or malice. It was lovely, just like the rest of him.

'This is ridiculous, I'm falling in love with a ghost…' Heero realized, but though the idea was silly to him, the reality of it wasn't. He did feel a strange sort of affection for both the living boy before him and the older ghost that had reached out to him inside the mirror. He wished that he could make that spirit smile, like this child was now.

The crow make a deep chirping noise as the boy's fingers stroked its feathers. Duo reached into his obi and took out a scrap of meat, feeding it to the bird. Heero chuckled. It was a childish thing, hiding things in an obi. He remembered when his mother had taken him to the village summer festivals and he had had to wear a yukata. The obi had been much smaller, but he had hidden snacks and toys in it to keep himself occupied (1).

"That's a silly name for a crow, isn't it, teishu-san? (2)

Heero whirled at the somehow familiar, but equally alien voice and felt his heart stop in his chest. Approaching the well from the porch was a child that looked exactly like him. The boy had to be about ten or eleven, maybe even twelve, dressed in a dark blue yukata, the same messy chocolate hair and smoldering blue eyes as Heero's own, only, this boy walked differently and the way he spoke was different. Heero realized that they were talking in an older dialect of Japanese, which made sense if what he was seeing was centuries ago. No, this boy wasn't him… not only was it impossible, but there was something about him that was very different. Duo's face scrunched up cutely, making a strange heat and sense of protectiveness fill Heero's chest.

"Don't call me that!" he protested, "Besides, Chii's a good name, tomodachi (3)," the longhaired boy teased. The older boy ruffled his hair.

"Helen-sama will be upset that you're feeding her bits of your dinner," the boy scolded.

"But, she's hungry," Duo pouted. The other boy rolled his eyes and, digging into his own, smaller obi, produced a bit of fish. The crow watched the fish with hungry eyes, making a happy screeching noise when the boy fed it to her.

"Hypocrite," Duo said with a grin.

"How did you learn that word?" the boy pressed.

"Dorothy-chan taught me it," Duo said.

The dark haired boy sighed.

"Don't listen to her anymore, Duo-san," he advised.

Heero blushed as Duo leaned his entire body against the other boy's arm.

"It's alright," Duo murmured, putting his arm down, making Chii fly off, "You're the only friend I need. We'll always be together, right?"

"Baka," the other boy said with an affectionate smirk.

Quatre awoke slowly, in the same dark place that he had fallen asleep in. He groaned softly. Not this… not again… was it always going to be the same, up until the moment of his death? It was getting colder and colder in the mansion and that lack of heat made his eyes widen and he sat up straight. He searched around the room for any sign of life. The moon was still fully, its light illuminating the room, showing him that he was utterly, completely alone. He realized that it was not the cold that had awoken him, but the absence of his lover. Not only that, but all of his friends had vanished, too. All of their things, back packs, water bottles, even their sleeping bags, had all vanished. He got to his feet quickly. How could they have left him behind? Had Relena finally gone through with her insane plan of leaving him behind? No, that couldn't be true. Even if what she had suggested, that it was because of his abilities that the house was… coming alive, even if he had fallen asleep and all of the doors and windows had opened again, Trowa would never leave him behind. Something else, something terrible, had happened.

Quatre abandoned his things and ran out of the room.

"Trowa!" he screamed. The long hallway echoed the sound, almost as though it was mocking him, but there were no other sounds. No creaks, no chatting of familiar, or unwanted, voices, just an endless silence, ending and beginning once again at the sound of his own voice. He shivered in the darkness of the hallway.

"Heero, Wufei, Zechs!" he continued to yell, "Relena!"

There was nothing, just more echoes of his voice as he walked towards the staircase. It couldn't be… he couldn't be alone, not in this horrible place… Quatre shuddered as fear gripped his heart, but he tried to deny it as the cold. For all of his psychic abilities, he was horribly vulnerable in this place. The ghosts could invade his dreams, his mind, and destroy his sanity so easily. So, what was it waiting for? And what had happened to his friends? Had they been swept away while they had all been dreaming?

Zechs couldn't remember what he had been dreaming about, but it was something terrible, so he was glad when he finally woke up. It was a relief to just open his eyes and know that, against all the odds, he was still alive. That was how he had fallen asleep in the first place, by just giving up his fear and replacing it with apathy. Whether he lived or died, he would awake in the same hell until those doors downstairs opened. He didn't know when it had happened, but he had given up on any optimism regarding being rescued during a morning that would never come. However, though the act of opening his eyes was a huge relief, what he saw made him get to his feet as swiftly as he could. He was somewhere else, somewhere new. It was clearly one of the guest rooms, but which one, or how he had gotten there, he couldn't figure out.

"Shit!" he swore. The only comfort for him in the strange room was the blanket that had been thrown over both mirrors in the room. If he had to rationalize something that seemed completely illogical, he would say that the ghost was, somehow, linked to the mirrors. It didn't make him feel completely safe, but it was better than staring at his own reflection, wondering if the longhaired spirit would come out of there at any second to choke the life out of him. The things was, like his little sister, he, too, had a strange affinity for horror movies and he was well versed in spirits and vampires and such, or at least, until coming here, he had thought he was. However, this ghost, their ghost, did not act as ghosts 'should', or at least as Hollywood saw them. He wasn't picking them off one by one. He wasn't making things fly around the room or possessing any of them. Really, he hadn't threatened any of them. And yet, there was some horribleness about him that made them _sense _that their lives were in danger. The movies rarely touched on those bits, the part about the mere feeling of the supernatural that wormed its way into your brain like both a hungry parasite and a raging fire, turning you inside out until you were no longer _you _anymore. He had never been this scared, this displaced before, and that feeling made him want to scream.

Zechs went to the sliding door and opened it, breathing in relief when he recognized the upstairs hallway. The last thing he wanted was to be lost. Really, he had only been moved a few rooms away from theirs, though whether he had been actually taken or had somehow sleep walked, he didn't know. Right now, he didn't particularly care. He might have been scared and feeling lost, but in the end, Relena and her friends were his responsibility as the oldest, so his one and only priority was to find them and see that they were safe. Even in the dark of the mansion, it was fairly easy to find the room that he had disappeared from.

"Relena!" he called as he entered, but the moonlight showed him that the room was empty of everything, especially his sister.

"Fuck!" he nearly screamed, his words echoing through the wood of the room and hallway. The one thing he could not afford to do was lose his little sister! He ran a shaking hand through his bangs. This wasn't happening… didn't they know to stay put?! But, maybe they had awoken to find him gone and had left to look for him or, even worse, perhaps they had been spirited away in their sleep as well. All he knew was that he needed to find Relena. And what about Wufei? The boy's leg wouldn't let him to get far. Zechs' pale skin blushed darkly at the thought of the Chinese boy. It wasn't fair, in fact, it was pretty disgusting, he realized, to prioritize the safety of a boy he had a crush on over his own sister, but he did. It made him feel so guilty, he actually felt sick over it, but he was more worried about Wufei than Relena, and it had little to do with his handicap. He had fallen for the dark haired boy years ago, but Wufei had never seemed the type to be interested in someone like him. Now, trapped in this mansion, waiting to die or go insane from the feeling of being trapped, he deeply regretted his decision to never ask Wufei out, even for a simply coffee. He should have.

'I will,' Zechs vowed as he left the room and started to go to another room, systematically checking each guest room on the upstairs for any trace of the others, 'If we survive this, I'm asking him out!'

However, with an insane spirit keeping the doors locked and watching them from the mirrors, shrouded and trapped by impenetrable wood and an endless night, such a promise seemed small, stupid, and utterly impossible.

"Trowa!" Quatre screamed, running through the maze of downstairs hallways. He had no idea where he was going, his flashlight bouncing wildly as he ran. He was so lost, he wasn't sure where he was and he didn't have the map. No matter how loudly he screamed his lover's name, nothing ever answered him. He knew that he was panicking, that he should slow down and plan out his searching, but he was too scared. He didn't want to slow down, didn't want to stop by any mirrors or hear any sweet chimes of small bells. All he wanted was to find his lover, if he could do that, it didn't matter to him if the ghost found him or not. He came to an abrupt stop when he reached a maze of tatami rooms that were open, their doors broken, some completely missing. He looked back the way he had come, but he realized that he didn't remember which way he had come. He stumbled into one of the rooms and sat heavily on the floor, his back against the wall. Sobs bubbled out of his tight chest and he curled into a ball.

"Trowa… why did you leave?" he cried. He was alone, so utterly alone… it was dark and cold and there was no one… He didn't want to die this way! He didn't want to die alone!

"_How does it feel?" _a distorted, terrible voice filled his head, making him want to scream, "_How does it feel to be left behind by the one you love most?"_

"Shut up!" Quatre screamed, "Just shut the fuck up! Bring him back!"

Cruel laughter filled the room and Quatre's back stiffened when he heard heavy creaking approaching the room, accompanied by the bitter sweet sound of a bell.

"_You're all going to die here."_

It wasn't long before Zechs' patient search became frantic. He wished that they had cell phone service, just so he could figure out where the hell all of his friends and his sister had gone. He entertained the idea that they were outside, but after the scare they had had with the vines outside, he had no desire to go there. After almost tripping over his own feet, desperately exploring each upstairs room, he had to slow down out of fear that he would end up breaking his neck. As scared as he had been before, the house seemed even more terrible when he was by himself. The only consolation he had was that no one was around to see him panicking. His steps faltered as the light from his flashlight fell on some red spots on the floor. Using his flashlight, he tracked the spots until they became a huge smear, leading around the corner of the hallway.

"What the hell?" he wondered out loud, his stomach becoming heavy with fear and disgust. Was this just another trick of the ghost, or had it finally stopped playing such games and had killed one of them? What if he was the last one alive?

With shaking legs, he followed the thick smear of blood, at least, he was almost positive it was blood, until it led into an open room. He realized, simultaneously, that the room was one of the libraries and that they had visited it earlier, though they had closed the door when they had left. Every instinct he had told him to stop following the blood, that he really didn't want to know what was at the end of it, but he found himself putting one foot in front of the other, getting closer and closer inside the room. He let his flashlight guide him, following the trail of blood and not focusing on anything else. Suddenly, the small ray of light fell on something solid and Zechs took a stumbling step towards it.

"No…" his voice wavered in shock. His stomach clenched and bile rose in his throat. It was Wufei, or at least, it had been not too long ago. His body was twisted around and around like rope or a piece of licorice, the bones snapped like feeble wood, his black eyes staring up at Zechs, wide and blind, glassed over in obvious death.

"Oh, God!" the silver haired man gasped out, feeling the urge to vomit at the sight of a boy he had seen only a few hours ago, if that.

"Why?!" he took a step away from the horrible, twisted corpse, his legs becoming weak and he fell on his butt on the hard wood floor. His flashlight fell from his shaking fingers, crashing onto the floor and rolling away from him, illuminating another figure in the room. Zechs' wide eyes stared at the figure, taking in a small boy, looking very familiar except for its age. The longhaired boy just stood there, watching him and his friend's corpse with amusement. He couldn't have been older than seven, his clothes stained a brilliant red, just like the teenaged version of himself, but he watched them like it was a wonderful game.

"You," Zechs snarled, terror and rage building up inside of him, "you did this, you killed him, why?!"

The little ghost grinned at him and started to laugh.

Elizabeth Victoria Peacecraft leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the black Mercedes her husband was driving, her crystal blue eyes looking out, into the deep woods they were driving towards, a thick fog making it difficult to see the road ahead of them, but her husband had always been a careful driver.

"Are you sure that this is where they went?" she questioned as she looked towards the mansion looming in the distance. Her husband, Richard, took one of his hands off the wheel to hold her smaller, slenderer one and gave it a comforting squeeze.

"Zechs' note said that they would be in the mansion, working on their paper," he reminded her, "They probably got caught up. They're still kids, after all, and the summer's almost over. They just decided to stay a little longer, make a sleepover out of it," he tried to assure her, but she could hear the anxiety in his voice and she bit her lip. Both of her children should have come home last night, according to her son's note, but they hadn't. Zechs' car was missing and there phones were either turned off or there was no service where they were. They had called the police, but they were of no help, simply telling them to wait until tomorrow and if their children still weren't home, they would search for them. Elizabeth didn't see the point in that. She knew where her children were and for all she knew, they could be in danger.

"What if they're hurt?" she worried, "Relena always gets a little carried away and that house is so old. What if the roof collapsed? Mr. Chang, Yuy, Winner, and Barton also told us that they're children were missing, something terrible must have happened."

"Relax," her husband soothed, "We're going there now, we're going to find them!"

Elizabeth continued to chew on her lip as the car turned onto the forest path and they got closer and closer to the huge house.

"I hate that place," she murmured.

Ever since she and her family had moved to Nasue, she had looked to the mansion, constantly looming in the town's horizon like some terrible, guardian angel, with hate and revulsion. The sight of the place creeped her out, but when she had heard about the stories of the place, the ritual sacrifices and various murders and disappearances, she had begun to despise it, like a whore house near a playground. As far as she was concerned, such a place should have been bulldozed years ago, yet here she was, going to that very same place to look for her daughter and son. The fog did not abate as they finally reached the entrance to the mansion, but the sight of Zechs' car parked outside was like a beacon to the both of them.

"They're still here!" Elizabeth cried, flinging open her door and running through the gate, which was open just a little bit.

"Wait!" Richard called, running after her, grabbing the first aid kit they had put in the car, just in case. He followed her to the door and she flung it open. The old wood door was a little bit stubborn, but gave way with a loud creak as she ran inside.

"Relena! Zechs!" she yelled. Richard shivered as he went inside. Even though it was the afternoon, and even with the fog the sun was shining brightly enough outside, it was dark in the house, like a tomb that no light could ever reach. His wife's words seemed to echo in a vast amount of endless space, but in the end, were swallowed up by the darkness. It was amazing to think that such a place existed in their own town. Elizabeth didn't seem to be so overwhelmed as she darted forward, screaming their children's names. He continued to run after her, feeling useless without a flashlight, following the wavy gold of her hair. He watched helplessly as she flung open door after door, only long enough to scream for Zechs and Relena before she was off to another door.

"Lizzie, stop it!" Richard made a grab for her, but she dove erratically down another hallway, evading him. He followed her, step for step, a part of him wanting her to stop, but another was just as desperate to find his children and if her random searching could find them…

The mansion was like a maze and, even though Richard had had a secret love of puzzles when he had been a child, he found himself getting easily frustrated. There were so many steps and rooms and hallways, it wasn't hard to see how people could get lost. Suddenly, through the darkness, he saw that his wife had reached the very end of one of the hallways and stood in front of a large door.

"Elizabeth," he breathed. His heart was pounding at the sight of the door, though he couldn't figure out why, and he didn't want her to open that door.

"Don't," he begged, but his wife seemed to be in a different time, opening the door without even hearing his words. The two of them walked into what appeared to be total darkness, yet they could see a few feet ahead of them. Richard reasoned that it had to be total darkness, since there were no windows in the new hallway and no lamps, either, yet, somehow, they could see where no visible light was shining. They stumbled together into the hallway. Richard squinted into the blackness and barely saw the shadows of ropes dangling from the ceiling that got clearer and clearer the closer they walked. He dived and dodged, trying to keep any of the ropes from touching him, though he wasn't sure if it was the chill in the achingly long corridor or the dark stains on the ropes, but they scared him enough to keep clear of them. The two of them walked and walked and walked until he was sure that the hallway had no end when his wife, only a few feet ahead of him, started to scream.

Richard's last thought before his entire mind was filled with white noise was that they had finally found at least one of their children and some of their friends. Four bodies hung by the ropes around their necks in front of Elizabeth and they recognized each of them. Quatre was the most recognizable out of the other two of Relena and Zechs' friends, his blonde hair clean and shimmering and his body whole except for the deep bruises around his neck, his blue eyes staring open. All of their eyes were staring open. Wufei's body was horribly mangled, twisted around and around in a terrible spiral. Trowa's body was slashed almost to ribbons, covered in huge cuts. Richard's wide eyes looked at his son, hanging there like all the others, only… he was untouched. It was obvious that it was the hanging that had killed him. It was also obvious to him that, that no one but Zechs himself could have hung him like that. His son had committed suicide… had he killed and hung his friends as well? But, the question that started to break through the white noise, little by little, was where were Heero and Relena?

Elizabeth kept screaming. (4)

Heero, Relena, Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, and Zechs all awoke at exactly the same moment, all of them, except for Heero, choking on their screams. Quatre and Trowa grabbed at each other's hands, their nerves tingling at the feeling of contact when their minds had believed they would never get that privilege again. Zechs sought Wufei out in the same way, but only with his eyes, feeling some deep rooted tension release him when he saw that he was alive and well, but the image of his twisted body stayed with him, like an overlapping image he couldn't shake. Relena, herself, couldn't stop shaking with what she just saw. She wished it was like all of her other dreams, once she had woken, it would start to fade, but it was just as clear, just as vivid, as when she had been asleep. She wondered if she was still asleep, if she had been sleeping all along.

"What the hell was that?!" Wufei demanded, struggling out of his sleeping bag to stand and look over his friends, his leg feeling like a solid weight. Sure enough, all of them were accounted for and mostly ok, except they each had new slashes on some parts of their bodies, a little deeper, bleeding a little bit more, along with the older scratches.

"I was dreaming," Trowa murmured as he wrapped his arms around Quatre and his lover melted in his embrace, "we had all gotten separated."

"I woke in this room," Quatre said, "all alone. I ran all over the place looking for all of you, but we were lost, disappeared. Then, Duo came to me…"

"I was in a different room," Zechs continued where Quatre had left off, "I searched and searched-,"

"But you found me dead," Wufei said in a spooked voice, "I don't remember what happened, one minute I was looking for all of you and the next… I don't know."

"I dreamt that our parents came looking for us," Relena said, looking at her brother, "they came here, but when they found us… we were all dead, except for Heero and I. It was like… we had disappeared into nothingness."

All seven of them felt a chill go down their spines at her words.

"It felt so real," she whispered. Wufei shook his head.

"They're just dreams," he said stubbornly, "I mean, it's still dark out," he gestured to the small window in the room which showed them a black world outside of the mansion.

"My watch says we've been asleep for ten hours," Quatre announced.

"Your watch is broken," Zechs said gruffly.

"It's insane, isn't it? Quatre mused, "According to my watch, two days have passed, but it's still dark, like an endless night…"

"Like I said, your watch is broken," Zechs insisted, but deep down, he didn't believe that at all. He knew exactly what Quatre was talking about, the feeling that they were stuck in the same hour, over and over and over again, in an unending loop. It was impossible, insane, and terrifying. It felt like they had never slept at all, like he had spent the last ten hours wide awake, running, always running. He watched in concern as Wufei limped to the door.

"Where are you going?" Quatre asked, "We shouldn't separate."

"For the record," Wufei said in a sharp voice, "I don't think it matters how many of us there are. Whether we're alone or together, this thing can kill us and there's nothing any of us can do about that. The reason for that is that we know next to nothing about this ghost. Rule number one of combat: know you're enemy. We're at war and something in this mansion has to tell us who and what this thing really is."

None of them could deny that Wufei was right, but Zechs seemed to be the only one who wanted to follow him out of the room.

"So, where are we going?" Zechs asked as he helped Wufei down the hallway, his limp getting worse and worse.

"The Master Bedroom," Wufei responded, sounding like his mind was a mile off.

"We can't open it, we tried once," Relena reminded him. Wufei shook his head.

"We have to keep trying. There has to be something in there. The Master of this house probably kept _something, _some clue we can use. If it still won't open, we'll keep looking. I'm not going to sit around until this thing decides to stop playing games and tear us all to shreds."

Heero watched his friends walk off towards the Master Bedroom, but hung back in the hallway. He didn't know why he didn't call out to them or tell them what he was going to do, but he hung back and kept silent as they disappeared into the darkness. He didn't need a map to find the red door of Duo's bedroom since it was so close to the Master Bedroom. He reasoned that his friends probably wouldn't even realize he was missing before he caught up with them again. Still, he felt guilty leaving them behind. Wufei was right, it was useless sticking together, but what little comfort they could get out of their situation couldn't be worthless. However, he felt no fear navigating through the house in the dark and he couldn't figure out why. It was as though some deep part of himself knew that the ghost wouldn't attack them, not now anyway. He was equally confused about how heavy his heart felt, opening that red door again.

The bedroom was exactly the same as they had left it and it was something of a relief to Heero that nothing had changed. Just like before, he felt sick when he entered, like a strange sort of vertigo or nausea. A strange painful pressure attacked his chest as he took in the room with the light of his flashlight. He leaned down near the dresser to pick up one of the strewn, violet obis. It looked like the same one the little boy in his vision had worn and the ghost wore. He wondered if the reason why the room was such a mess was because the last time Duo had been here, there had been a struggle. His mind wandered to the cell hidden behind the walls and wondered if the little boy he had seen in his dream had ever been up there. The thought sent a shiver through him. That child had been so bright, so beautiful, he couldn't bear the thought of the child or the older boy being chained up in that horrible place. He stood up, letting the obi fall through his fingers, and went through each drawer, collecting the journals as he went. He didn't know exactly why he was doing it when he couldn't read the old words, but it made him feel good to have a mission, no matter how useless. He had heard that the key to beating stress was keeping busy and it seemed right somehow. When he had all the old journals collected and stored in his back pack, he looked over at the lattice nervously. There was one more that he should get, the most important one, really. It was the only one where he could read any of Duo's words, in a place that might have been where the boy had died, yet he really didn't want to go back up there, especially alone. Wasn't there some unwritten rule that the place where someone died was also where their ghost was the strongest? After everything that had happened, he was a bit afraid of the ghost getting any stronger. But, it felt like that journal, and those words he had read, were calling him. He shouldered his back pack, opened the lattice, and crawled through.

The cell seemed even more horrible when he was by himself, absent from the warmth of his friends, cold and distant from the rest of the house. He crouched to enter the cell, taking a deep breath. He kneeled down to inspect the shackles he had only glanced at early in the day, though it seemed like weeks ago. They were indeed chained to the floor with not enough chain to do more than stand up and walk two feet. The inside of the shackles were stained dark with old blood. He shuddered and let it drop to the floor with a clang. He turned to retrieve the book and froze. Duo was sitting on the floor in front of him, his pale ankles chained in the shackles. He looked up at Heero with violet eyes brimming with tears. A lone tear trailed down Heero's cheek. The oddest thing was that the kimono he was wearing was pure white, not a single drop of blood staining it.

"Duo…" he murmured, "You have to help us."

He didn't know why he asked the ghost for help when it was responsible for all of their problems, but he couldn't believe that the crying boy before them would hurt them.

"_Please, help me. I don't want to kill. Don't make me kill. Please…" _the boy's voice was distorted, like the other ghost they had seen, but unlike that one, this voice was only filled with sorrow, not evil or malice. Suddenly, the spirit vanished as though it had never been there.

' 'Please help me',' Heero thought, 'But what can I possibly do?'

Wufei, Relena, and Quatre watched as Zechs and Trowa wailed on the Master Bedroom door, uselessly as it didn't budge an inch. Quatre looked back down the hallway, nervously. Heero had disappeared and what scared him the most was the possibility that spirits hadn't whisked him away, like in his dream, but that his friend had chosen to walk off on his own. Something was going on with Heero, something that, even with his abilities, he couldn't possibly begin to understand. He wanted to hate Heero for it, for endangering himself and keeping secrets during a time when none of them could afford any. Still, he didn't tell the others that the Japanese boy was missing, didn't want any of them to know that there was something wrong. They were all like violin strings, ready to snap if things got any tighter and putting any suspicious light on one of their own would probably be the breaking point. At the very least, they would end up screaming at Heero about putting himself in harm's way, but Wufei was right. It didn't really matter if they were by themselves or together.

"_You're all going to die here."_

Quatre shuddered. When had he started to worry about Heero? If he had to make a guess, it was when his parents had told him that Heero had been admitted to the hospital because of the car crash, but that still wasn't quite it. He had been worried about his friend's injuries, but it wasn't until later that he had started to think that there was some darkness in Heero that was begging to break out. Maybe that was why the ghost was singling Duo out, because he had wished for death after his parents had died. Heero had never outright acted suicidal, it was just a feeling that Quatre had, that Heero's mind was close to death. He had always been a little bit distant, as though he was in a high place that none of them could hope to reach, but after the accident, it was as though their friend was spread thin, nearly transparent to the rest of them. Heero, drunk at the time, had once told him that he felt more alive, more real, when he was dreaming than when he was awake. At the time, Quatre had thought it was just drunken nonsense, but he wasn't so sure anymore. They were all so stressed, on the urge of breaking, but with Heero, it was hard to tell. It could be that he was just hiding his fear inside, silently, or… it could be that he wasn't afraid at all. It could be that he was glad that his death was finally coming for him, or he was just so apathetic that he didn't care. Quatre didn't think that was true, or rather, he didn't want to believe it. There were times when Heero seemed like the friend they had always known, and others where he was just so distant, it was actually terrifying to watch. He saw Trowa stop pushing at the door with a defeated stance and knew that they were all giving up. He hadn't expected anything else, though it did pique his curiosity in wondering what was in that room.

"So, you still can't get it open?" Quatre jumped as Heero spoke from behind him. He whirled, feeling elated that his friend was alright, but still annoyed at what he had done.

"Not without a battering ram, and even then…" Zechs said with a shake of his head. Wufei gave out a frustrated little snort and walked back down the hall, towards the stairs, Zechs following him like a lost puppy as the rest of them ran to catch up.

Somewhere in between the stairs and stumbling into the workshop, Wufei's leg had turned into a solid mass of stone. He could no longer limp with it, the pain and stiffness becoming unbearable, and he sagged to the floor, fortunately having enough grace left to make the move less shameful. It seemed like his body was constantly betraying him, just because of his mistakes. He was worthless in that respect. He kept making the same mistake over and over again, hoping that things would get better, that time would heal all of his wounds, but that was just a lie, he easily overestimated himself, thinking that he could turn his heart, his emotions, to stone, but they kept bubbling up and overwhelming him. He had no doubt that that was why he was seeing Meiran now, after so many years. His own guilt ridden, turbulent soul was going over her echo, her spirit, like some obsessed voyeur. He had known, for a very long time now, that he could never let her go. She was his world, just like she had been when she was alive and he was sure that she would be his death, as well.

_Meiran had been dead for three years and so much had changed in Wufei's life. He and his father had moved to a different country, a different town, a different house. He had made new friends, gone to a new school. To the outward observer, it would appear his life had become fresh and new, but inside, the darkness still lurked. To him, everything was exactly the same. As long as Meiran was dead and far from him, it would always be the same. He wanted to be with her, wanted to see her more than anything he had ever felt before. Moving on, becoming whole again, seemed so completely impossible. He had known her for so long, seeing her beautiful face every day had become as natural as breathing, but now… there was this huge, horrible void inside of him that was eating away, always eating. It wasn't just that it was too hard to pick up the pieces, he just didn't want to. He couldn't see the point in going on. Still, for three years, he suffered in silence, completely alone as father continued to think that he was doing fine. He wondered if he would ever forgive him for stealing him away from the only home he had ever known, his and Meiran's home. He loved him, but deep down inside, he also secretly hated him. He supposed that if he couldn't forgive himself, he wouldn't forgive his father. How did people cope with this sort of thing, anyway? He felt like he was walking around without a soul. He couldn't taste anything, couldn't feel anything but loneliness and ache, and every time he felt his heart beat in his chest, it shocked him. He thought that this must be what hell was like, just standing still while the world passed you by, waiting for something that would never happen. Waiting for the one you loved to come back to you, knowing full well that you are so very, very alone, screaming and raving in the dark until you lost every drop of yourself. You become jaded, bitter, and so very angry. How could you not hate the rest of the world for coveting what you have lost? (5)_

"_Wufei, you haven't told me anything about your classes yet," his mother's chipper voice gained his attention again. His coal black eyes met hers and for a moment, he hoped that she couldn't see the darkness in them that he couldn't quite hide. At the pretty smile on her familiar face, he felt a deep rage fill him. He didn't want her to be happy, especially not to see him. He didn't want to see anyone smiling ever again. How could she possibly be happy to visit him of all people? He, who had destroyed his future and happiness so swiftly, without a thought. He wanted to wipe that smile off her face with a swift slap. He ignored her, stirring his rice around in the bowl with his chopsticks as he and his parents ate their dinner. His mother was only visiting for a few days since she and his father were still in disagreement over his relocating Wufei to Japan, but he wished that she had never come. All she did was remind him of everything he wanted to forget, but was too scared to. Every time she opened her mouth, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He wanted to go home, even if he couldn't bear it. _

"'_Fei," his mother began and he couldn't take anymore. He slammed his hands on the table and stood, vivid anger creating the first real life in his eyes for a very long time._

"_Why are you here, Mother?" he demanded. She looked at him with wide, shocked eyes._

"_Why didn't you just stay away?!" he snarled, "What's the point of you being here?! Do you think that I want you visiting me like this?! Why don't you just stay in China and leave me in peace! You're not making this any easier for anyone except yourself! And don't call me 'Fei', don't ever call me that again!" _

_The color drained from his mother's face as he screamed at her. There was a part of him that knew he should feel badly about hurting her, but it was small and fading. He greatly preferred the feeling of rage to the ones of grief and emptiness. Anger he could release, little by little, but he realized now that his grief was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life. What scared him the most wasn't his lack of guilt at venting his rage at his mother, but that one day, the anger would no longer come to home and he would only feel loneliness. But, until then, he reveled in the only strong emotion he had felt since Meiran's death, taking the still warm porcelain bowl that held his rice from the table and throwing it against the wall. Seeing it shatter made him feel oddly better and he wished to do the same to the table they were sitting, but the sudden urge to just leave, to get out of the stifling house with his stifling parents was more overwhelming than his need for destruction. He rose quickly from his seat and stormed out of the kitchen, grabbing the keys to his father's car on his way out, leaving without a single word to his parents._

"_Wufei, stop!" his father called after him, but he was only responded by the sound of the front door slamming shut in a brutal force. _

It had been a rainy night and visibility had been poor, so when Wufei had turned up in the hospital the next day in critical condition, his parents had assumed the obvious, in his anger, he had lost control of the car. At the time, he had realized just how pathetic he was as his mother sobbed at his bedside. He realized that, if he died, he would make his parents suffer, just like how Meiran had made him suffer. Knowing that sort of terrible pain first hand, how could he possibly give that pain to his family, the only family he had left? So, he had told them that it was just a horrible accident, that the rain had obscured his vision, only for a second. He told them that he was sorry, he didn't want to argue anymore, he was just glad he was still alive. But… it had all been a lie. He had gone out that night with the intent of joining his love in the only way he knew how. He had left the house because he had needed to escape from memories and pretending to be just fine in front of his parents, but as soon as he had started the engine to his father's car, he had known exactly what he was going to do. Yes, visibility had been poor, but he had seen the tree with perfect clarity. What he hadn't seen was his own body's desperate need to survive. Instead of dying, he had awoken in a white, sterile room with his mother's tears soaking his bed sheets. In that moment, he had seen things better than he had for a very long time. Meiran would have hated him for what he had become and he had clung to that belief ever since the accident to try to make the most out of his life. The world was still dull and tasteless compared to what it had been like when she was alive and every day was painful, the need to just end the hollowness in his chest almost like a compulsion, or an addiction, but he had fought and fought and for the first time, he felt like he was finally moving forward from his betrothed's death.

"Are you alright?" Zechs asked as he watched Wufei sit down heavily and stiffly, his leg making the move awkward. Wufei looked up at him with hollow black eyes, still partially caught in his memories and Zechs struggled to find his breath at the haunting look. But, like it had never been there, the Chinese boy schooled his expression quickly.

"I'm fine," he murmured. He looked down at his hands, suddenly feeling a stinging pain. It was another cut, worse than the others, starting to drip blood down his arm. He saw that the others were sitting down in the room, looking distant and forlorn, but he didn't blame them. Zechs sat down next to him and brushed his long, silvery hair away from his neck, showing a long cut trailing from the back of his neck to the side, blood streaming down his shirt.

"They're getting worse," the taller man said in a low voice, so the others couldn't hear, "If they keep getting deeper like this… we might bleed to death. All we have is a very basic first aid kit."

"And all of us have them, all of us except Heero?" Wufei asked, looking over at his Japanese friend briefly, who was sitting near Quatre, looking through what looked like an old leather book. Zechs followed his stare, also looking away quickly.

"Yes," he said cautiously. The thought had occurred to him, too, how Heero had only gotten one cut and that was from shattered glass. He didn't want to dwell on that for very long, though. That was how these things started, the doubt, the paranoia… but it was still so odd, he just didn't want to start doubting a friend when they were all they had to rely on.

"What do you think it means?" he asked Wufei, but the younger boy just shook his head.

"I don't know," he admitted, but he couldn't shake the feeling of suspicion as he thought about the cuts, and Heero's immunity to them.

Quatre watched Heero flipping through Duo's old journals as he leaned heavily against Trowa's arm. He wanted to ask how Heero had gotten the journals, but he already knew. That was what Heero had been doing when he had left their side for only a few minutes. It made him feel slightly better knowing what Heero had been doing, even if he still couldn't understand it. There was a lot that he didn't understand in this place and he was starting to accept those things as what they were. At least he hadn't risked his life just for the sheer thrill of it, though he never would have believed Heero to be the type. Trowa was asleep, sitting against the wall. Quatre couldn't understand how he could just fall asleep like that, but he knew how tired he was. They were all tired, more so than they should be. They had slept well, but human beings weren't meant to live like this, in constant fear and darkness, time eroding away into nothing. Sleep was useless, it only brought terrible dreams. Dreams that could be something more… something worse.

"What did you dream about?" Quatre's question came out harsher than he had intended, but Heero seemed undaunted, only briefly looking up at him, slightly annoyed to be interrupted from his reading.

"Nothing," he lied, "I didn't dream at all."

It was a selfish reason, but Heero didn't want to tell Quatre or any of his friends about his dream of a younger, happier Duo. He felt jealous of the thought of anyone else knowing, like a petulant child that was unwilling to share his toys. It didn't matter anyway. Dreams weren't going to save them.

Quatre gave his friend a piercing look. They had known each other for too long to not realize when the other was lying. He thought that he should press it, demand to know what Heero had dreamed about, but he knew how stupid and useless that would be. It would cause a rift between them, verbally calling Heero a liar and trying to force him to say something he obviously didn't want to tell. Instead, he let the issue drop, keeping silent as he felt Trowa's warmth against his arm. Heero quickly returned to flipping through the pages of the old journal. Quatre carefully watched the pages, but saw little difference from when they had last looked through them, the pages stiff and yellow, the old ink faded and obscured, impossible to read. He watched as Heero opened the last of the journals, and remembered the last page, the only message they could read, with a heavy heart.

"_It is so lonely here. I can hear the wind moving downstairs. It will not even reach me. I am truly alone…_

… _I know that it is inevitable, but I am afraid to die."_

Sitting on the cold tatami, not knowing when his life would end, in a few seconds or a few days, Quatre could feel the boy's fear strongly and it made his heart feel like it was being ripped apart. To know that you were going to die and that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it… even they had some tiny spark of hope that they would be rescued, however fleeting, but this boy, Duo, he had accepted his death as something… 'inevitable'. How horrible was that? To die so young, probably all alone. What Quatre couldn't let go of was why, if there had been any reason, that Duo had lost his life. From his words, it had sounded like premeditated murder, or, considering how old the journals looked, even ritualistic murder. He knew it was a different country, with different beliefs, but the thought of anyone killing someone so young, for whatever reason, sickened him.

Heero stilled on the last page of the journal, where the message had been and Quatre caught his wide eyed, shocked expression easily. The message was still there, written in careful script, but much clearer, as though it had only been written a few years ago. What was even more incredible than that was the rest of the page, which had, somehow, become more legible since they had last seen it.

"_I recall being here when I was much younger. Father brought me up here, just like he did this morning, and locked me in this dismal cage, only, this time, you can't stop it. Not anymore. It has not been so long since Father and the other priests woke me and chained me up here, but I already miss the sun. I miss walking with you in the courtyard, though it has only been a few days since our last stroll. It is so lonely here. I can hear the wind moving downstairs. It will not even reach me. I am truly alone_

_Are you waiting for them to come for you, too? Or, have they lied to me and have denied me the last good thing in my life? There is a dark part of me that wishes that Father and Mother are crying for what they are about to do. I hate this part of myself. I do not wish for them to hurt. I understand, this must be done, but I am so afraid. I just want to see you one last time, can I not have that one, small thing? But, truthfully, is it so small? If I die soon, keeping your face close to my heart, knowing I said goodbye properly, I think I could be happy. Even in darkness, and my own palpable fear, as long as you can live, I will be happy. I can tell myself these things, and yet, there is that dark part in me that threatens to turn that fear into hate. But, I will never hate you, or Mother and Father, if that were to happen… I would no longer be myself. _

_I know that it is inevitable, but I am afraid to die. I miss the smell of the cherry blossoms and the sight of your beautiful eyes. That scares me the most, knowing I will spend my eternity without those things, in the dark, in a place so lonely and cold, it will surely drive me mad. The thought that I will be saving all of you is no longer such a comfort to me in this fear. It should be, it was when I was a child, but now… I am so selfish and I hate myself for that. _

_Heero, I know it is difficult, believe me, I do know, but… if I must die, and we can no longer be together, please, promise me this…_

_Live. Live and have a wonderful life. Do not blame yourself, or my parents. No matter what happens… I will always love you. If such a thing is possible, I will be waiting for you. I'll wait all eternities, even to the end of this existence. I love you._

End Chapter 2

Man, that took forever to write. I know the end of this chapter probably raised a few eyebrows, and I will be exploring it later in the next chapter. For now, and I'm sure a few of you will be surprised/excited to hear this, I'm (finally!) going to start working on the next chapter of Change of Heart. Black Heart is temporarily going to be scrapped because I want to rework it. As it right now, I don't like it enough, but I'm not abandoning it. Like Tears of the Wolf and A Stagnation of Love, it's going to come back as a remake, since it was something I made long before I had refined my writing style.

(1) My cousin's daughter does this -_- when they go to these festivals and she wears her kimono, she hides her mice in the obi so she can play with them. I might be a little bit biased, but I think it's adorable. For those of you who don't know what an obi is, it's the colorful, wide tie around the waist of the kimono. I don't know if you can use the same word for the tie of the yukata, which is a lighter kimono with less layers, used during the summer, but in this case, I'm going to use it for both. To clarify, Duo's Heero wears a male yukata, but Duo's kimono is a mix between the female kimono and the male one, not as tight and heavy as the female's, but more elegant than the male's.

(2) Means 'Master', this will make sense when more of Duo's back story is revealed. It is sufficient to say that this particular 'Heero', Duo's best friend, sees Duo as higher status than him and addresses him as such.

(3) Means 'beloved friend' or 'best friend'. Duo means it partially in teasing because Heero used a formal title for him.

(4) If I was a lazy bitch, I'd end the entire story here. Heero and Relena go missing and everyone else dies, THE END! But, that wouldn't make much sense and would leave too many questions, and I'm enjoying myself just a little bit too much, so on with the story!

(5) This was meant to be pretty ironic because it shows, a little bit, of what made Duo into the evil spirit. I had hoped that many people would get that instinctually, but I realize now that some would have to read the entire fic twice to get it. Hint: there are in fact many, many ironic things like this in the fic that you might not pick up on unless you know exactly what Duo's past is. Yeah, I know it's annoying, but I love seeing it in horror.


	10. Chapter 3: Dolls Part 1

Beyond the Looking Glass

Chapter 3: Dolls

Author's Note: This chapter will give brief insights into Duo's past and current ghostly character, put our living characters into further jeopardy, and hopefully, I'll have freaked people out a bit more. I'm actually shocked that so many people have reviewed and e-mailed saying that this fic has scared them. It's always nice knowing that you've hit your target and I hope that everyone's enjoying it. As always, I promise no happy endings, just a disturbing, questionable journey, and a few good scares. Maybe some will live, but at least one main character will die. This is a horror story, after all. The title 'dolls' is a throwback to one of my oldest fears. Yes, even as a young girl, dolls terrified me. They still do. Same thing with clowns. How anyone can find these things 'cute' or 'fun', I have no idea. I blame my mother and her tendency to put creepy ass dolls in my room when I was little.

Also, I'm well aware that the 'intro' is too freakin' long. Blame Odin. He just wouldn't shut the hell up.

"What is a ghost? A tragedy doomed to repeat itself time and again? An instance of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber… A ghost… That's what I am."

~The Devil's Backbone

September 3, 2023

It was a good thing that Odin Lowe had spent his entire life in loneliness or the long, desolate trek through rural Japan to a hopeful salvation would have driven him half mad. If there was one thing he had always been good at, even as a child, was hiding, though he had never had anyone trying to find him until he had taken up this job. There was something woefully lonely about hiding when no one cared enough, or hated enough, to want to find you, but still, he had been good at it. Such a skill in his line of work was invaluable. You could shoot a target from a seemingly impossible distance, be as quiet as an owl in the depths of night, or have impenetrable nerves of steel, but none of those things mattered if you couldn't hide yourself at the end of it all.

It was because of this skill, and only this skill, that had still seen Odin alive after twenty years of living as an assassin. Men in Odin's trade called themselves 'rogue mercenaries' and 'lone wolves', but they weren't anything more than murderers for hire. Odin was well aware of this fact and wasn't ashamed of his line of work. You couldn't be in this line of work for twenty years and hate yourself, you wouldn't last. And yet, in a way, Odin was disgusted in himself. He had regrets like any man, but his regrets were heavier than most and weighed on him.

Odin's job was simple. Someone would pay for his time, give him a name, and he would find that person, or persons in some cases, and take them out as efficiently and silently as possible. The job left no room for grey areas, it was as black and white as possible, kill or don't kill, and for most of his career, that had suited him just fine. Another assassin had even told him that they were a lot like whores. They got paid, privately, to do a dishonest service, and at the end of the day, if you could look at yourself in the mirror, you knew you'd last in the business. If you couldn't, you might as well just quit before you got yourself killed. Odin had hated the similarity, but he couldn't deny the truth of it.

Odin wasn't like other assassins who simply didn't care about the people he killed, he wasn't exactly a bleeding heart, either, but he wasn't apathetic. He was well aware that his line of work was 'wrong', but as wrong as it was, he was _good _at it. People got into this business for all sorts of reasons. Some were sociopaths, they didn't care about life and death, right and wrong, they found some sort of pleasure in murder and chaos. Some were desperate for money and chose to believe that the people they killed were evil, that what the did had some meaning, but Odin knew that that was an illusion, a poorly constructed lie. He had had his fair share of men that probably deserved to be wiped off the earth, but also quite a few innocents. Children of ambassadors, rich old ladies… he couldn't lie to himself and say that these people deserved it.

Other assassins, on the other hand, had chosen to do it because of something terrible that had happened in their pasts. They were consumed by rage and clung to the violence and death like a security blanket. Odin had strived to steer clear of these individuals because they were reckless and irrational, killing not for money, but for some sort of twisted sense of vengeance, or just because it made them feel good. For these people, killing was easy, and Odin never wanted it to be easy. Killing was a job, but he didn't want to lose his humanity just because of a job. Even if he was good at it.

Perhaps it was for that reason that he had grown tired of it in these last few years. He was not haunted by the people he had killed, rather, he was haunted by how good he had gotten at killing, how easy it had become. It had become almost… boring, which was a disturbing concept to him. He didn't want to be a killer. A man with a job to do, yes, even a man with a job that he was good at, illegal or not. But once it became so easy that the money didn't even excite him anymore, just the prospect, the pride of that easiness, it was only a small step to doing it for free. Killing might be his calling, it certainly seemed so with how frequently he was asked for, and how he had never been caught, but his comfort in it would make him a murderer, something, he felt, he was too smart to fall into. Murderers got caught, because they liked the killing too much to stop. If there was one group of people that disgusted him, it would be addicts.

So, he felt that he had a choice. He could either just put himself up for retirement, find some other easy job that would bore him enough he could never truly love it, or he could keep going until that line between a job and an obsession was completely blurred beyond repair. It seemed like fate had been working with him in this sense on his last job. He had just been contemplating his choices when he had been contacted to kill a certain ambassador who was taking a vacation in Japan.

A Russian national, Odin seldom ever strayed far from his homeland, but had been confident in both his Japanese and his ability to hide amongst a crowd. However, in this case, his skills had failed him. With his noticeable height and blonde hair, Odin had been spotted and recognized easily, ending with him being shot in the shoulder and pursued heavily, though not before he had made his own shot, finishing the job. It was a small victory, though, with Japanese Defense Forces and international police chasing him through the continent like hungry dogs after an elusive bit of raw meat. Still, being on the run had given him the excuse to stay out of Russia and make him escape his old life, if he could only find a place that the police wouldn't find him, he could settle down for awhile. Even if it was in Japan, and he stood out like a sore thumb here.

Keeping to the back roads had been ridiculously easily. Japan was a great place to hide in, especially the more rural villages that had temples and shrines that had abandoned long ago, even before the third World War had demolished so many cities around the globe. In the past, Odin had wished he had been old enough to have seen the war, it would have made hiding so much easier. The other good thing about these small towns and villages was the people's distrust of strangers, both native Japanese and foreigners. To these people, if you had not been born in their town, you were as foreign as a tall white man, even if you look, acted, and spoke like Japanese. Because of this, his procuring of medical supplies and directions became quick and easy, the people he asked just wanting to get rid of him, because he was different, but wasn't causing any trouble. The police, however, were given little information, because they symbolized something sinister to the small town people.

It was four days since the failed job that Odin found himself in the strange town of Nasue. Despite his holing up in dirty rooms and being constantly on the move, Odin's bullet wound was healing, though slowly, and did not hurt him very much. Being on the run from the 'law' really only meant that he was isolated from everyone. He was not overly bothered by the prospect of being caught and sent to jail, but he could speak to no one, could hardly even walk through a crowd, since he was so different looking. It was strange how that made him feel. He had spent his whole life in loneliness, yet now, when he entered Nasue, he was suddenly struck with this deep feeling of depression, having not a single person he could rely on or converse with. What was even stranger was that Nasue, which was similar to all the other towns, seemed lonelier than all the others.

The people here looked at him with fear, not simply distrust, but actual _fear, _as though they had secrets to tell, secrets that he was a part of and was only there to make things worse. He wondered if it was because he was a stranger to the town, simply passing through as seldom did, or because he was Russian and not Asian. When he tried to ask directions, no one would respond to him, only hurrying away. He wondered if that had anything to do with his blood-stained shirt. His bullet wound had started to bleed a little again once he had entered the town, but he couldn't worry about it until he had some sort of shelter. Odin quickly realized that no one was going to grant a bloodied stranger like him refuge and, oddly, there were no temples in this town, though the old woman made the same signs at him that others had in different towns, so he knew that they all had some sort of religion.

It seemed to get darker quicker here, though that was silly, Odin knew, it was not winter quite yet. By the time the sun had set, he had long surrendered the possibility of finding a motel or a kind stranger who could put him up for the night. Nasue, being a backwater town, was too far away from any other city for him to give up on it, and it was too dark for him to try to find some other place. He didn't have any camping equipment, which was unusual for him. He had always been meticulous, even as a child, which was a reason why the exacting nature, the perfection behind the job of being an assassin, had called to him. Camping was the same way, but he had hardly the time or accessibility to find gear for it. Still, it seemed like his only solution was to sleep in the woods, which suited him. Sleeping out in the wilderness that surrounded the town like a feral blanket would be safer for him than being near people.

As Odin started to walk towards the wilder, hillier side of town, the only supplies with him a blanket, a bit of food and water, and a med kit, all freshly stolen, plus the guns he had had on him and the hunting knife he always carried, he realized that he was being followed by a group of children. There were four of them, and though they were several feet away, keeping a great distance between themselves and him, it was obvious that they were trailing him as he walked up an uneven path that trailed up the hill. They were watching him with terrified eyes, but refused to back off. They whispered to each other occasionally, but Odin could not hear them over the harsh, fall wind. The four of them seemed indecisive as well as fearful and the thought that they had come to bully him seemed ridiculous, but Odin could not think of another reason for scared children to be following him so resolutely.

Odin paused on the trail as the children continued to follow him, but hesitated more and more the higher they went, as though they knew they shouldn't be up here. He contemplated throwing rocks at them, not liking how their presence made the back of his neck prickle with the need to 'take care' of his stalkers, but the last thing he needed were a bunch of pissed off parents coming after him. He turned back around and continued to walk, trying to ignore the children.

The wooden path was strange to him. It was clearly not kept up by the village, weeds and wild flowers and rocks scattered along the path, yet it had not completely taken to wild woods. There were no tire tracks, but also no grass, as though both people and nature knew to keep away from it. Huge trees blocked out the night sky and a strong wind moved through them, making eerie sounds as it shook the trees and the wild, untamed grass that grew on the edges of the path, but not on it. In the trees, no birds or bats flew. There weren't even any mosquitoes or fireflies, which was very odd to Odin, but he couldn't put his finger on why it seemed so strange. He only knew that it made him on edge.

Odin glanced behind him and saw that the children had left him, no doubt running home to dinner, or out of fear of getting lost out in the woods. He snorted to himself. He had little experience with people in general, let alone children, and their absence made him feel better, yet at the same time, nervous, still something that he couldn't quite explain to himself. He put it out of his mind, but the disturbing feelings remained and he continued to walk up the long, curving path, feeling like he was walking into the heart of the dark woods.

Despite this feeling, Odin saw in awe, when he reached the peak of the hill, the trees disappeared, giving way to flat land. Even more incredible than the lack of forest that he had been expecting was the enormous mansion sitting there were deep woods should have stood. There was something chilling about the place just being there, an elaborate house in the middle of the wild, miles from the town. The place was clearly ancient, leaving Odin with the thought that it may have been here long before the town ever had. It seemed to have been abandoned for a very long time and Odin wondered how it was even still standing so perfectly and not a mess of rotted wood, swept away from centuries of wind and wear and rain. But it was shelter, and that was all that mattered now.

It was a dismal, windy autumn night, but when Odin slipped through the huge gate that greeted him, he saw with a strong feeling of _wrong _that the cherry tree in the large front yard was in tact. On the grassy ground, not a single pink petal lay, as though the wind could not touch the innards of the yard and mansion. In the front yard, the plants were growing uncontrolled, even the pretty tree was completely wild, but the biggest testament to the place's abandonment and neglect were the remains of a once upon a time rock garden that had been strewn about violently, as though it had been done by a child in the middle of a temper.

Odin's first instinct was to try to push the door closed, his analytical mind supplying that, once such a door was locked, it would take nothing less than a bomb or raging fire to get through it again, even a battering ram couldn't do it in. However, that same analytical part of him told him that closing it all on his own was impossible. The door was massive, though it should have been splintered and rotten, it looked just solid and heavy and perfect, as though it had been constructed a short few days ago instead of centuries. Also, something else that seemed to prick at his mind as something wrong or off, was how the door was open. The last occupants of the house should have shut the door fully, to keep the villagers from looting or squatting in the massive home, or, if they had been so careless, the doors should have been flung fully open, as an image of welcome or, in later years, for cars to pass through. And yet, the door was open enough only for one person to pass through, as though the person that had left it that way to keep cars and such out. The whole thing just seemed… strange to his perceptive eye.

Odin tried to shake off the odd feelings. He had been around long enough to believe, no, know, that things like spirits, the supernatural, and anything of any sort of unnatural nature weren't real. The only ghosts existed in the human mind. The house was undeniably creepy, but that was only because he was so anxious and tired. When he woke in the morning, it would seem less so. Still, as he approached the front entrance, there was something, deep down in his stomach, demanding that he turn around and find a place in the woods to camp out. No, not even the woods near him, but as close to the town as can be, because even the dark woods up here, on the hill, made his insides squirm.

The blonde assassin tried the door to the mansion and found it unlocked, though the old door took some force to open and when it did, it creaked and groaned like an old man. Immediately, Odin dug out his flashlight from his pack and walked into the house. He shivered as he walked into the entrance, there was an incredible chill in here, even worse than outside, and he reasoned that it was because it was fall and there was surely no heat source in the entire house, but even the cold felt wrong. There were lattice screens blocking in certain hallways past the foyer and he had to take a step up to get level with the seemingly maze-like paths. The flashlight in his hand was like the ones policemen or security guards used, the base was long and the light was powerful, yet the light couldn't penetrate the darkness of the long hallways, as though he were trying to see into utter nothingness. When he shone it on the screens, it created shadows that were so vivid, so full of detail, they looked like people, standing and watching, yet they were suspended, as though they had no feet at all, not hanging, but… stuck.

Odin, at the sight of those shadows, felt a sharp spike of fear go through him and quickly flicked the flashlight away, the fear growing as he could no longer see the shadows, then illuminated the screens once more, only this time, the shadows were gone and the light showed him nothing. He laughed at himself, flinching at how hollow and dead the large, wooden structure made his voice sound. His grandmother had often told him ghost stories as a child, including the old belief that ghosts were spirits who wandered, but had no feet. That was what this was, his overactive, tired imagination, remembering those stories and painting his anxiety into reality, but it was nothing more than shadows and the eeriness of this place. Odin ignored the fact that he had hid in all sorts of places like this one in the past, but never before had he felt so ill at ease, like he was being sucked into a deep, dark hole that he could never claw his way out of.

The blue-eyed man, still trying to deny such strange, disturbing thoughts, was already formulating a plan as he braved one of the long, dark hallways. He was a man that always needed planning, he would be lost without some sort of organization. First, he would need to find a suitable room, where he would have supper and sleep. In the morning, he would go back into town and find out if the police had followed him here. If they had, he would hide in the mansion longer and maybe they would move on. If they hadn't, he would leave and try to find an airport. It was clear to him that he could never fade away into a crowd in this city. He couldn't go back to Russia, either, they would be expecting that. America, or perhaps England, these were his best chances. If only he could escape Japan without being caught.

Suddenly, as he walked towards one of the first rooms he saw, Odin heard a sharp creaking from behind him, as though someone was walking from the screen to the other side of the foyer. In less than a second, Odin was turning to face the sound, a gun in his hand, cocked and ready to fire at the intruder. The flashlight made the shadows arch like long claws on the old wood, but that was all that was there. He chuckled again at himself. There were no such things as ghosts. If there were, he would be haunted every second ever since he had killed his first mark. He heard the floorboards creak loudly above his head, dust falling onto his head. He shook his hand through his hair, shaking away the dust. The creaking only further convinced him that the strangeness was all in his head.

This house was old and probably filled with all sorts of gaps for the wind to move through. He was paranoid of the tail that he was sure would follow him all the way to this town, so it wasn't such a leap to think it was all in his head. However, hearing those creaks and groans of the old wood only furthered that paranoia. He had survived so far by being several steps ahead of his pursuers and staying to the shadows. Remembering those kids following him earlier, he now feared that just hiding up here wasn't enough.

Children didn't distrust like their parents did, but they did fear. If a cop asked one of those kids about the strange blonde man, they would be more willing to speak to them out of fear for authority, or maybe a small bribe. The old house was a perfect hiding place for him because those small, creeping sounds would hide any noise he might make and the old floorboards would easily tell him if someone came into the house. He just needed to find a hiding place that no sane person would look in. He scrapped the first floor entirely. That was too obvious, the first place that anyone would look. Most people who feared for their lives wouldn't brave the second floor of an ancient place, whose structure might not be stable.

He continued to walk down the long hallway, ignoring other side hallways and inviting, open doors. He ignored the way the shadows lurched in front of him, or the movements in the corner of his eyes from behind him. It almost made him mad, fighting against his instincts to shoot at anything threatening. It was all in his head, he told himself. There was nothing in this old place besides a lot of dust. As he walked, he heard more strange noises coming from the second floor. Heavy creaking and constant scratching. Rats, he told himself. This place had to be infested with them. Very, very big rats. He ignored the doubt in him that told him that the scratching couldn't be from little, scrambling paws. It sounded like human nails against woods, as though someone had been locked away in the walls and was trying, frantically, to get out.

Odin shuddered a little. The thought of cat-sized rats running around upstairs was more chilling to him than someone trapped in the house with him. He hated rats. He _loathed _them. Their naked, hairless tails, beady black eyes, their squeaking voices which sounded like squealing babies, their square, tiny teeth… He had been bitten by one, just once. It had been early on in his assassin career. He had been hiding out after a hit in a condemned factory. He remembered the feeling of those little, square teeth sinking into his flesh, feeling like sharp wood chips, but warm and diseased. The rat had been large and black, hideous looking. Since then, he had hated the little monsters, how they had no fear of humans like so many other animals did, climbing into his things and sometimes, even his clothes, searching for food. The only thing he hated more was spiders.

Odin finally came upon a long staircase leading up, not looking very sturdy at all, but he started up it anyway. It creaked loudly, but didn't shift, to his surprise. That was old age workmanship, he supposed. Nowadays, everything only last a few years, yet there were places like this that were still standing after all these centuries. The upstairs was, with the exception of structure and design, exactly the same as the upstairs. There were different hallways and different doors, but the feeling of the place remained. It was eerily quiet and still, a pervasive smell of old age and nothingness. It was as though time had stopped and life itself was rotting. It made it hard to breathe, as though Odin had entered an ancient tomb and his mere presence was a blasphemy.

The staircase traveled above the second floor to a third and Odin had to wonder how many floors this house had. Remembering the view he had gotten, looking up at the mansion from outside, he felt chilled to think the house could easily be four or five levels high, not including a basement. He continued up the staircase, thinking that the higher up he went, the better a hiding spot he would find, and the less his pursuers would likely follow him. He supposed to any other person, it would seem silly, but even the smallest details could save his life. Like the second and first floor, the third floor was built like a labyrinth.

Just standing there on the landing next to the staircase, could see that there were hundreds of doors, alcoves, hallways, and side hallways. It was like stepping out into a microcosm. He chose a hallway at random, the only way he _could _choose. There were no windows, not even a shred of light, and the beam from his powerful flashlight seemed so pathetic, as though the shadows were laughing in disdain at him. He idly wished that he had a map for this massive place, as a small, childish part of himself briefly cried out about getting lost. It wouldn't be very hard to get lost in a place like this, but the mansion was old and made of wood, how difficult could it be to break down a wall or window?

Odin continued to walk forward, as slowly as he was willing to, keeping his flashlight's beam trained on the floor in front of him. An old place like this was a death trap of loose floor boards and rotten wood. If he fell from this far up, he would no longer have to worry about the police or fellow assassins. He walked for what seemed like hours, but for some inexplicable reason, there were no doors in this hallway.

It had to lead to somewhere and he forced himself to believe it was another trick of his mind, that the lack of light made it impossible to tell how long he had really been walking for, even as that childish part of himself that remembered old ghost stories and superstitions clung to the idea that he would be walking forever, down this dark, silent hallway. If he turned back, it would be the same. He would never find that staircase again, or another hallway. He would be suck on this straight path for all of eternity, as the world passed him by. The adult part of him scoffed at the silliness of such ideas, but the darkness was a powerful thing and his inability to tell time was chilling him.

Immersed in his thoughts and self doubts, Odin almost fell as his foot hit empty space and the flashlight's beam met with what looked like another staircase. He grabbed onto the railing to stop from tripping and thought, in irritation and worry, that he really _was _lost, that he had someone gone in a giant circle and he was back at the staircase he had gone up before. A quick glance down told him otherwise. His flashlight couldn't pick up much, but he should have been able to see something of the second floor when he looked down. Instead, he saw nothing, just blackness and more of the staircase. Also, the area between the stairs and the walls was narrow, looking more like a narrow pit or an elevator shaft. Again, he felt the dryness, the silent void. Not even the slightest of air currents hit him as he looked down over the railing.

He should have doubled back and found a room to hide in, though common sense told him he didn't know how long that would take. These stairs might lead him to a better hiding space, or just the second or first floor again. His curiosity won over his sense of caution and he dug into his pocket for a piece of change, dropping it down into the black pit below. He waited. And waited. He strained his ears for a noise of any kind, though he didn't really need to. He would be able to hear a mouse breathe in this unnatural silence. He didn't even realize that he had stopped hearing the creaking of boards except for the ones under his own feet, or the scratching.

Odin heard the sharp sound of the change hitting something solid. It was a long drop, two floor at least. The staircase suddenly struck him as a kind of cave, the blackness below him like a void, or maybe an old well, devoid of water and sound and life. Something gripped his heart at the thought of going down there, a little voice inside screaming at him to turn around and find the entrance on the first floor, to camp out in the woods if he had to, but to not go down there. Another part of him screamed at him to do it, to go down. To take the plunge into something threatening, just for the sheer joy of it. He didn't know if that was the assassin in him, the thing that made him kill and take risks day after day, or if something was beckoning him, that thing that haunted every kid that climbed a tall tree. They knew that they shouldn't jump, that they could easily break their legs, yet they couldn't deny the urge to fall.

_'There's something down there.' _

The thought came to him like an electric shock and his eyes strained downwards, trying to give some fact to that random thought, though he still couldn't see anything. He snorted at his own foolishness. There wasn't anything down there, in the dark, just more of the house. Still, he should keep moving forward, hadn't that always been his way of doing things? Odin took a step down, testing the stairs. They creaked, sounding like joints popping into place, but didn't break. He took each step slowly, not sure if the old staircase would really hold his weight, but he continued to walk.

The staircase was like the hallway, traveling downwards, almost never-ending. He counted each step patiently, measuring which floor he would be on as he quickly realized that the staircase didn't meet a floor when it should. As he passed by what should have been the second floor, he wondered where the stairs would lead. Some secret place? The other side of the house? Or perhaps this was a disposal of sorts. He didn't know how people disposed of waste back when this house was built and it seemed so strange to have a staircase like this, one that passed by floors. He went down and down, until he reached what should have been the first floor, and met with the end of the staircase.

No, not really the end of it, Odin realized, as he shone his light downwards again. The planks of the stairs were collapsed, but he clearly saw, several feet forward and down, more stairs. It was almost like something had fallen from a great height and had crashed through the stairs, creating this great gap. He couldn't see the true bottom of the staircase, but logic told him that it had to end near the first floor. The hole between the stairs spurred him on. No sane man would take such a leap and fall to the other side of the stairs, not knowing how deep the fall was, or if those stairs were intact. He was no sane man, however, and knew that he could reach the other side safely, if he was very careful.

Odin lowered himself down, gripping the last stair with his hands until he was hanging in midair, his flashlight tucked in his belt-loop, the light streaming down into still blackness. It was unnerving, just hanging there, unable to focus that singular beam of light, the only one that he had, where he wanted it: the steps below. He had to aim using mostly memory and what little bit that light showed him. Hanging there, he suddenly felt like a worm on a hook, just waiting for something big and powerful, something with rows of sharp, pointy teeth to swallow him up. Or snatch him out of the air, like a large bat would an insect. That image made him shudder. This place had somehow managed to strip away the confident assassin and expose his weaker points more efficiently than a prison guard or expert torturer.

He was a bad ass, he told himself. He had a glock tucked in the back of his pants and his hands were drenched in the blood of hundreds of people, many of them fellow bad asses. He had killed mafia bosses, politicians, and serial killers alike. He was untouchable. Some shadows couldn't change that.

His eyes strayed down to the blackness below and all those comforting thoughts crumbled, leaving his heart quaking with a fear that he couldn't even put a name to. A fear he had only felt once, as a child, lying in bed one hot summer's night, freshly woken to find a large, fat, black spider crawling up his naked chest towards his face. He had been frozen then, as he was now, looking at uncertainty, mindless in the face of it, and not even sure why. He gritted his teeth and steeled his nerves. He was Odin Lowe, a man, not a child, and he had a job to do. He swung his body back and forth, then dropped into the blackness below.

He almost yelled out, childishly, in relief as his feet met something solid, instead of just feet upon feet of open air. His heart beat wildly and, if he had been just a little bit older, he would have worried about a heart attack. His fall was jarring and he stumbled back down to the next step at the momentum, but quickly regained his balance. Something shifted under his feet and fear flared inside of him, trying to remember how heavy he was. His imagination, suddenly overreactive, tried to do an equation. Odin's weight plus rotten wood equals very messy death. It painted a picture of him splattered on the ground below with his pursuers looking down at his mangled body, laughing at such a lame death for a once great assassin.

The stairs under him groaned loudly and he could feel the wall to his right shift as well, just slightly. Dust from somewhere above him fell in his hair, but the stairs didn't beak. He breathed in relief again. Maybe, after this, he should join the circus, he thought in amusement. He felt something strange move down his face, but concluded that it was just more dust at the ticklish, light feeling. He swiped at it with his hand. The movement moved up his hand, to his wrist. He paused, his hazel eyes widening in the dark, realizing that the movement was vaguely familiar to him. He suddenly felt very cold and very still, holding his hand out in front of him and grabbing his flashlight with the other.

Odin yelled loudly as the flashlight showed him a large spider slowly crawling up his arm. He batted it off frantically, revulsion seizing him. He felt more movement down his face and he panicked. There were more on him. With a scream that, moments later, he would think was just frustration, he ruffled his hair, pulling at it and sending sparks of pain through his scalp that he barely realized through his fear. Dozens of spiders fell from his blonde hair, each of them fat and black. Some of them fell on his leg and he backed up quickly, brushing them off, and forgot that he wasn't on flat ground. He fell backwards, quickly losing his footing, but the panic from the spiders was greater than his fear of breaking his neck at that moment and he didn't try to break his fall as he fell off the side of the steps, no railing to stop him.

His head slammed into solid wood and he saw a bright light in his vision, tinged red. It quickly dissipated, followed by a sharp pain. He heard the heavy sound of his metal flashlight hitting the same wood he had and felt a fear as sharp as his fear of the spiders, not that he had broken something in his fall, but that the flashlight would go out, leaving him in total darkness. As he lay there, he wondered at that fear. He wasn't afraid of the dark, never had been. Even if the light went out, he just had to find another source of it. There had to be a window somewhere, right? And yet, the thought of darkness terrified him like it never had, as though that fear was coming from somewhere else, some alien invader in his head.

Then again, he thought, he had no idea where he had fallen and getting lost in this place would not be a good thing, so light was invaluable. And then there were the spiders... without the flashlight, he wouldn't be able to see them... Odin jumped to his feet, grabbing the still operational flashlight and looking around frantically. They should be all over him by now... scuttling around on the floor, all fat and black and terrible looking, but there was nothing. Had they scurried back to some dark corner? No, he should be able to see at least one of them, but all he saw was a flat, wooden floor. He touched the back of his aching head and winced as he felt hot, wet blood. Not enough to worry him, but enough to start considering a very mild concussion.

Had the spiders just been in his head? His fear of the fall making him see and feel things? He didn't think so. It had been too vivid, the feeling of little, scratchy legs moving down his face and hand, the sight of those fat, black spiders, like ghosts out of his worst, childhood memory. He touched his hair with a shaky hand, but he felt only dust and hair, no arachnids. He shook his head, ignoring the pounding, and took a look at his surroundings. The floor he had fallen on wasn't very big. His flashlight allowed him to see all four sides, though shadows obscured most of the details, but still bigger than most of the one room apartments he had lived in in his life. Planks of wood lay on the floor under the stair case, but the most destructive thing was right in the middle of the floor. The planks of wood were bent and shattered, revealing a large patch of sandy earth underneath it.

To him, it looked as if something had fallen from a great height, falling onto the floor with a great force, breaking it. He wondered if the ceiling above was broken, too, but that ceiling was more than three levels up and he wouldn't be able to see it. He walked towards the mangled boards and frowned. The earth and the boards were darker than the rest and Odin had to wonder if it was blood. If it _was, _then it was very, very old. He moved his flashlight, following those dark splotches as they moved from the hole in the floor to a trunk by the far wall. There was a part of him that was screaming at this point to find a way out, to just ignore the ancient trunk at the same time that his curiosity made him move forward, informing him that the trunk was big enough to hold a human being, that what if the blood wasn't that old at all?

He opened the lid with a great deal of effort, the thing heavy and awkward to move, then swore out loud. The lid slid to the floor with a loud bang. The inside of the trunk was very plain, made of only wood, but splashed with blood. It was vibrant in the flashlight's beam, brighter than the splatters on the floor. There were streaks of blood on the front of the trunk, too. It was as though someone had poured blood into the box and it had overflowed. He turned away in disgust. Someone had died in that box. That, or it wasn't blood at all and this was some kind of trick. No one could bleed that much and live to tell about it. Hell, no one could bleed a third of that much. He put the image of someone trapped inside of that trunk, bleeding to death, far out of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it anyway. His grandmother had told him once that any house, with enough years behind it, had its ghosts. This one was clearly no exception.

Odin looked along each wall, trying to find a door or window. There was nothing. Remembering how long it had taken him to reach the bottom, he realized that he had to be in some sort of basement. What if the stairs were the only way out of here? What if it really was some kind of pit? He didn't think that he could pull himself back up those broken steps, but refused to even consider the possibility that he might be trapped down here. In a darkened corner, under the steps, something glowed. At first, he thought it was simply an illusion, the light of his flashlight bouncing off some piece of metal or glass, but when he turned his flashlight away, the glow remained. No, a pair of lights, like eyes, reddish, like the eyes of a jackal or rat, but it was far too big to belong to a rat.

His heart racing again, he walked closer to the glowing eyes, trying to get the light on the thing so he could see what it was. He had this terrible image of a giant rat, or perhaps a rabid dog, leaping at him as soon as he got too close. As he got closer, his flashlight flickered, making it impossible to see. The glowing peered back at him, right into his frightened heart, the flickering of his flashlight chilling him. To be in the dark with that glowing... He whipped his gun out from the back of his pants, aiming for those glowing eyes, ready to kill whatever was huddling there in the dark. The light stopped flickering and became solid once more, but instead of seeing the eyes of a hungry, feral dog, the redness became the blue-violet eyes of a little boy.

Odin immediately dropped the hand holding the gun, shame filling him. He had almost shot a kid... he only looked like he was six or seven, too. He had gone after kids before, but never this young, and those had just been jobs... He knew, logically, that there really wasn't any difference between killing for money and just plain murdering someone, but as thin as that line was, he felt shaken. He was losing it... that had to be what was going on. The noises, the shadows, the spiders, his fear... after all these years of hits, he was finally losing his mind. But, even as he thought that, that logical part of himself was screaming at him. Why, it demanded, was a kid this young down here in the dark? No, _how _was this kid down here? The stairs were broken and there was no way a kid this little could have jumped down here without killing himself.

Then, there was the flashlight. He could see parts of the boy, his feet, the strange clothing he wore, and his face. The light should have been able to pick up all of the boy's body, but the light was inexplicably dull on his bare arms and neck, giving Odin only the impression of form and skin. It was as though the light was fleeing from the boy's skin, but Odin explained it away. It had to be from the fall. His flashlight had been working fine up until now and he was sure that flashlights didn't work that way, but he refused to accept any other explanation.

The boy himself was strange. Trapped down here, in the complete darkness, in a strange house, he should have been sobbing and terrified, but he looked up at Odin with a bizarre calmness. It reminded Odin of the way a cat would look at a bug, with interest, as though it were studying it, but it knew that it was the one in control and it had no reason to be wary of its soon to be prey. He shook off that odd thought. The boy was unnaturally pale, like the blood had stolen from his body, or he was terribly sick. Odin clung to that impression. It was easy to believe that the boy was scared and just a quiet, repressed sort of child, even if the look on his face said otherwise. Still, that look made him feel uneasy. Just seconds ago, he had been pointing a loaded gun at this little boy, fully intending on shooting him, but the boy didn't even seem shocked by this, or even a little bit worried about getting shot.

Why hadn't he yelled for him? If he had been sitting in the dark for so long, he should have made some noise once he had heard Odin fall or see the flashlight, but he had continued to sit here, in the dark, waiting. He just kept staring up at him like Odin was nothing, just a bug that had wandered into his room. All of his logic, all of his common sense told him to get away from the boy, that there was something very, very wrong here, but what little humanity he had left wouldn't let him do it. He told himself that the boy was just in shock. But the kimono... he couldn't see it very clearly, but he could tell that the boy was wearing a kimono.

Odin didn't think that many kids these days wore such traditional clothing. Even if this kid came from a very old fashioned family, he thought that only girls wore kimonos. And it was white. Maybe that wasn't so odd, but this house was ancient. There was dust and grime everywhere, yet the kimono, from what he could see of it, was pristine. Around his shoulders, the white looked clean and new. How could that even be possible? Maybe this boy had been with the other children that had tried to follow him earlier, he reasoned. Maybe he had gone ahead while the others had gone back to town. Maybe there was a festival going on today or tomorrow and that was why the boy was dressed the way he was. He couldn't even think about the oddness of his long hair. He couldn't give much thought to any of it, finding a rare weak spot for little boys, lost and alone in the dark. He knelt down, trying to appear non-threatening even as the boy continued to stare at him, wordless.

"Hey, there," he said cautiously in poor Japanese, tucking his gun back into his pants, "What are you doing down here, kiddo?"

The boy continued to stare for a moment and Odin worried about the little Japanese that he knew, that he might have said the wrong thing. He knew how to talk conversationally, a little bit, enough to get by in this country, but was always worried about getting the translations mixed up.

"I can't find my doll," the boy finally said, his voice just as strange as the rest of him, sounding as though he were whispering and there was something wrong with his throat.

The boy clearly wasn't afraid of where he was, Odin concluded. Maybe he was too young to really understand that he was trapped here, too worried about a lost toy.

"Do you know where you might have dropped it?" Odin ventured, trying to figure out how he was going to get the boy out of this pit of a room, when he couldn't even figure out how to get himself out.

To his shock, the boy raised his arm and pointed past Odin, towards the floor. Odin turned to look and saw what looked like a trap door, near where the floor was broken.

'That wasn't there before,' he thought with absolute clarity.

Again, as he had with all the other thoughts that didn't make sense to him, he shook it off. He had missed it, he told himself. In his panic and the confusing darkness, he had missed one trap door. That was how the boy had gotten into his room. He grabbed onto that rational thought with desperation. The boy wasn't scared because he knew how to get out, he was just in this room because he was looking for his doll. Then, there was another chaotic thought. Just how far down did this house go? They were already in a basement of sorts. That trap door must go down below the house itself.

"Down there?" Odin clarified, not wanting at all to go down there.

That trap door could lead anywhere and as much as he wanted to get out of this pit, he didn't want to go down there, either. Why had he gone those steps? The thought hit him like a physical blow as he realized how illogical his actions had been. He had gone down into the dark, had risked his life taking that fall, into a room that he didn't have a way out of. Why? He should have gone back the way he came as soon as he had realized that the staircase was broken. So, why had he made the decision to jump down here? It was as though something had dragged him here, like a siren seducing men to crash on the rocky shore. But, maybe it was for the best, if he had found this kid.

The boy nodded, continuing to point at the door. Odin bit back a sigh. He had to get this child back to his parents. He might be a terrible human being with questionable morals, but that concept was pretty basic. Maybe he was going to hell, but it wouldn't be for leaving a little kid in an old mansion. He would help him find his toy and the boy might be able to help him find his way out, that was a fair trade. After all, there had to be another way in and out of the mansion or he would have seen the kid before now. Unless he had entered before Odin did, but that didn't make much sense to him.

"I'll help you find it, ok?" he said.

The boy didn't reply and continued to stare up at him. Odin reached out his hand and took one of the boy's, relieved that the kid didn't throw a fit at having a stranger touch him. For a brief moment, Odin was startled by the feeling of that small hand in his. It was cold. Not just cold in that the boy had been sitting in the cold air of this basement for a long time, but cold like the way a piece of cloth that had never been worn could be cold, lifeless and still, just a thing. His skin felt strange, too, not smooth like a kid's hand should be, but Odin couldn't figure out why it felt odd to him. As the kid stood up and walked with him, Odin felt like he was carrying around an old doll, but pushed the feeling away. He was just jumpy, that was all. Of course the boy was cold. He was only wearing a thin kimono after all and there was no heat down here in the dark.

As they walked, Odin strangely wondering who was leading whom, he heard a strange sound coming from the boy's feet, like a chime. It was a bell, it's golden, metal surface reflecting in the light of the flashlight. Odin puzzled over that. He remembered old wives' tales of mountain children having bells tied to their ankles so their mothers would always know where they were, but in this day and age, when parents had GPS chips put in their kids wrists, such a thing seemed so outdated and quaint. Odin knelt down by the trap door and lifted it up.

It was heavy, like the lid of the trunk and its hinges creaked loudly, dust falling off of it. It came to him, then, that there was no way a little kid could have lifted the door and with all that dust… this time, it was impossible for him to shake off the thought. It settled there, in his mind, making his unease grow and grow. A quick glance down showed him wooden 'steps' nailed into the side of a rock wall leading down, far enough that he couldn't see the bottom. That bothered him, that the wall leading down was made of natural stone, not wood, like the wall of a cave.

"I'll go down, ok?" he said to the boy.

Again, the boy said nothing, simply watching him with an unblinking stare. Odin tucked the flashlight back in one of his pant loops and descended down the stairs. The planks of wood that served as steps were in remarkable shape compared to the steps leading into the basement room, considering how damp the air was the further down Odin went. He didn't think that the kid would be able to get down these stairs with that kimono on and he would have to help him, but he wanted to make sure that everything was safe first.

The stairs went down fifteen, maybe twenty feet. When Odin reached the bottom he shone his flashlight ahead of him and was shocked to see, not another room or even a cave, but a man-made tunnel, carved out of the rock of the mountains that the mansion was built upon. There were wooden struts holding up the stone walls and ceiling, water leaking down from above, though Odin didn't know if there was a lake or a swamp above, or maybe just from a recent rain. He thought that it had to be a large body of water, there was just this impression of a great deal of pressure coming from above. The tunnel was obviously well made, or it would have flooded years ago. Even from where Odin was standing, he could see other tunnels along the winding path. It reminded him of the house itself, immense and maze-like. He really hoped that the kid knew how to get back where he came from.

"Hey, I'll help you down-," Odin started to say as he turned around.

The little boy looked up at him, suddenly appearing in front of Odin by the stairs. The blonde assassin stared at him, something inside of him quaking in fear. Goosebumps appeared on his arms as he stared down at the child. When had he gotten down here? No… no, he couldn't have climbed down in the time that Odin had had his back turned to him. That was impossible. His kimono wouldn't have allowed him to get down here, even slowly. But then again… it wouldn't have allowed him to get up the ladder to begin with, either… every nerve he had was quaking with caution and warning. He flinched as the boy suddenly reached up and grabbed his hand, his eyes seemed to threaten Odin to move forward. He did so without a thought.

The question came, searing in his mind, the need to ask the boy if he had climbed down or just appeared. He didn't try to rationalize that question, to call himself a fool for even thinking it, but he didn't ask it, either. He realized why that was. He was scared of this child. When he had first come into this house, he would laughed at himself and the stupidity of fearing one, small child who just barely came above his knees, but now… how long had he been walking in that third floor hallway? Now… now it felt like he had been here for days, not hours.

Together, they walked, but Odin felt like he was being dragged around, like the boy's hand in his was a shackle and he couldn't let go, no matter how hard he pulled. He didn't try to. It was like those old ghost stories like The Phantom Traveler, or Riding the Bullet. The main character would suddenly realize that the person next to them wasn't real, was a ghost or some kind of monster, but as long as they pretended that they hadn't realized that, they were fine. Once that monster figured out that they had figured out… they were done for. Some part of him still pulled away at that idea, told him quite firmly that he an idiot. This child was just lost, just a dumb kid, nothing more. But, somehow, it was harder to listen to that voice.

The path winded this way and that, going up in hills and down in pits. There were hundreds of other paths, leading somewhere unknown, but the child kept them on a straight path. Odin didn't even know what direction they were going in anymore. For all he knew, they could be going back the way they came, with how windy the path was. At some point, he looked down and realized that they boy was barefoot. He had noted it back when he had first seen the child, but hadn't really thought about it until now. The ground was rough with gravel and sharp rocks. He almost said something about it, volunteer to carry the boy, when he saw that the boy was walking fine, his feet not bloody or even scratched.

No child was this silent, no human could walk this path barefoot and not be in considerable pain… Odin firmly kept looking on ahead, terrified of even acknowledging his own thoughts. It was ridiculous but… he was afraid of the boy reading his fears, of realizing that Odin was starting to suspect that there was something unnatural about him… They walked for so long that Odin started to feel a blister form on the sole of one of his feet, but then he saw the end of the tunnel, another row of planks leading to another trap door. He looked down to ask the boy if he wanted to him to go up it, but the boy was gone, like a wisp of smoke. Odin shuddered. He knew where the boy was. Somehow, he knew.

Odin climbed up to the trap door and it took all of his strength to get this door open. It slammed against the floor above and he pulled himself up. A sudden light, after hour upon hour of absolute darkness, blinded him. He flung his arm over his eyes, the smell of candle wax, dust, and old wood overwhelming him, and waited until he could see again. It was a small room, quaint compared to the large cavern below. There were several workbenches, each with wooden arms, legs, heads, and other doll parts strewn about. The light that had blinded him came from five paper lanterns, the flame in them flickering, placed at each corner of the room and one on top of a work bench. He quickly came to realize that, though he was out of the darkness and the confinement of the stairway and cavern, even this room was wrong.

There was wreckage all over the room. The wall behind him was destroyed in a way that Odin had never seen in his entire life, the wood bent, but not broken, like large ribs. The largest workbench was in splinters around the room, various doll parts mangled and broken. The damage of the wall and the bench was intense to look at, looking, not like a natural force, but the temper tantrum of a child. From the ceiling hung small dolls, the ropes tied, oddly, not to their backs but around their necks. Every doll had black and red hair. It was strangely macabre looking, like a dozen hanging children. To Odin's right was a large mirror, but, unlike the rest of the old, untouched room, there was no dust or streaks on its flat surface. It, like the child, was unnatural to look at.

The child was suddenly there, by his side, and had been there since Odin had climbed up. His blue eyes widened as he saw, on the mirror side, the little dolls were swinging back and forth while on his side, they remained as still as death. He swallowed roughly. He felt like he was dreaming. He felt like he had never gone up and down all those stairs, that he had never left the first floor. He knew, without any idea about how he could possibly know it, that this room was on that first floor. He glanced down at the boy and had to fight not to look away.

What little doubt he had left him, leaving him feeling hollow and chilled. He could see clearly now what shadows and his weakened flashlight had hid. The boy's unearthly skin was slashed brutally, looking red and raw in the light of the lanterns, giving fact to Odin's earlier thought that that white skin looked bloodless. Someone had bled the child dry. The boy was looking to the side of the workbench in front of them and Odin followed his gaze. Two feet, the size of the child's but made of wood, poked out of the corner. His doll. In the midst of his psychotic musings, he had completely forgotten about their search.

He walked over to the bench, not wanting to turn his back on the boy, but secretly hoping that once the doll was given to him, the… thing would go away. He picked up the doll, which was heavy, just slightly smaller than the boy himself, and was glad to see that the doll was intact. Again, he thought of the destruction of the room. He didn't want to see what the boy was capable of if Odin couldn't deliver to him what he wanted. The doll was an ugly thing, not something that Odin could see a child wanting to play with. Most children wanted soft things, things they could hug and sleep with, things that were brightly colored, shaped like animals or something cute. The doll was none of these things.

It was more like a mannequin than a doll, obviously made during a period when wood was more in fashion than plastic. Or rather, perhaps that was because the doll, like the dolls around him, were all handmade. Part of it's ugliness was purely from age and rot. The wood it was made of had been, he was sure, smooth and pretty when it had been new, but was now ragged and dark from time. It's form was remarkably correct, given its handmade quality, with several joints in its hands and feet. Positioned correctly, it could hold things and even stand up. It was impossible to tell what sort of clothes the doll had been decorated with as they were now rotten and in tatters.

The doll might have had a sweet, cute face in the past, but now, it was as grotesque as the dolls hanging from nooses. It's long hair, instead of straw, was made from what looked like horse hair and it was a dingy sort of black. Odin thought it might have been brown or chestnut in the past, but centuries of dirt and lack of care had changed that. It's eyes were eerie, slanted slots with fake, glass eyes a dark purple color, darker than the little boy's eyes, but it was obvious that someone had tried to mimic them. One eye was clouded, the color dull, like the doll had cataracts, the wooden eye socket of the other rotted so badly that the socket was a gaping hole, the glass eye nearly falling out of it.

The worst, though, was the mouth, the wood, like the eye socket, rotten so that the tiny smile of a children's doll was pulled apart and full, like the smile of a clown, the ends too far up the cheeks to be anything but sinister. When it had first been made, the little smile would have given just a glimpse of perfectly crafted teeth, but now, the wooden teeth were sharp and uneven, glaring out of the widened, sneering mouth. The head itself was twisted around, looking in the opposite direction of its front, it's wooden neck cracked, but he couldn't tell is someone had broken its neck on purpose. He couldn't imagine such a thing being well loved by any child and yet, this one had dragged him all this way for this one. He turned it back around, so the head and back were facing the ground, not wanting to look into those unsettling eyes anymore.

"Is this your doll?" he asked the long haired boy.

The boy stared up at him, this time, his gaze full of fury and hate instead of study.

"No!" the boy yelled angrily, sounding like a child about to throw a tantrum.

The air around them grew heavy and something icy cold wrapped around Odin's heart, choking him and making it hard to breathe. He gasped for breath, his whole body shaking and his hair standing on end. His heart struggled to beat through the ice and he realized that, if fury could be tangible, a living thing in the air, it would be like this. Odin froze in place, even as his instincts wanted to make him run away from the child, as he heard a creaking sound so loud, it was almost like a snap. It wasn't coming from upstairs anymore, it was…

He looked down at the doll he held in his hands. The doll's head was no longer facing down, but to the side. He watched, in horror, as the head continued to turn, just a little bit every minute, towards him, it's broken neck creaking, like bones snapping into place. Glassy, purple eyes stared up at him like an accusation as the head finally settled, right where it should be.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered through his terror.

The doll's hand grabbed his arm, pulling itself up, the wooden fingers leaving tiny splinters in his flesh. Odin barely had time to blink as the doll leapt out of his arms, the movement shocking compared to how slow the head and arm's movements had been, and bit Odin's neck, it's sharp, wooden teeth sinking in deeply. Teeth like a rat's, but worse. This rat was conscious. It wasn't biting him to protect itself or warn him off. It wanted to kill him. No, not just that. It wanted to taste his blood. A dozen shards of hard wood pierced through his skin, pain shooting through his neck.

Odin yelped at that pain, grabbing frantically at the doll's head, ripping the thing away from his neck, taking a piece of his flesh with it, and threw it across the room. The mannequin crashed against the wall and fell in a jumble on the floor. Blood, hot and thick, poured from the deep wound on Odin's neck, soaking his shirt with it. He fell to his knees, suddenly feeling strange, not quite lightheaded, but like something was wrong. His head throbbed and his vision dimmed.

He felt like he was falling backwards, but not physically. He saw, through his fading vision, the doll's limbs twitch. It started to rise again, it's joints popping back into place. It took lurching, awkward steps towards him, a cross between a horror movie zombie and someone having a seizure. It's shoulders were slumped, the blackened hair falling in front of it's eyes, but Odin could still see them looking up at him through the hair, one painfully wide, the other clouded, and it took jarring steps, one after the other towards him. He was transfixed by the sight of his wet blood dripping from those wooden teeth. Then, he fell into blackness.

End Part 1

A few things. One, yes, I'm sorry that this is only part of the intro, but it got too long, so I stopped it at 32 pages. Two, I will be working on Beyond the Looking Glass all through October. Then, I'm going to be working on Violence + Sex = Love for Nanowrimo, so fans of that should rejoice. Three, please, please, please review this story. There aren't many reviews for it and if I'm to put out more of this chapter before Halloween, I really need some writer juice.


	11. Chapter 3: Dolls Part 2

Beyond the Looking Glass

Chapter 3: Dolls

Author's Notes: Yay, I wrote seventy pages more this year than last year! This chapter is sooo much longer than it should have been, but each part of this chapter holds vital information about the past. The title 'dolls' isn't just for the child ghost looking for his doll, it's about the control traditions had over Duo's life, and death, and his vulnerability against those traditions. As the ghosts allude to at the end of the introduction, Heero and his friends are all dolls to be played with and broken.

There's no way I'm going to get the next part out before Sunday, so Happy Halloween!

Don't forget that I will only be working on Violence plus Sex equals Love all November.

Part 2

"Houses are alive. This is something we know. News from our nerve endings.

If we're quiet… if we listen… we can hear houses breathe. Sometimes in the depth of the night, we hear them groan. It's as if they're having bad dreams.

A good house cradles and comforts. A bad one fills us with instinctive unease.

Bad houses hate our warmth, our humanness. That blind hate of our humanity is what we mean when we use the word "haunted.""

-Rose Red

It felt like he was falling backwards, like he had when he had fallen down those stairs, only there were no stairs to fall over, only emptiness. He felt cold, colder than he had ever felt in his entire life, but mostly, he just felt wrong. His skin prickled, as though he were being pinched all over, and his head felt like it was on fire. It felt as though minutes, hours, days, and weeks were passing him by, all in the span of a second. That sensation alone was almost enough to drive him mad. Then, he felt flat floor under his feet and it was as though he hadn't been falling at all. The memory of the doll, slowly rising to its feet and stumbling towards him, was sharp and vivid. He frantically reached behind him for his gun, the gun which he hadn't even thought to use until now, but he quickly realized that there was no doll.

There were no dolls at all, actually. No shattered workbenches, no broken wall, no pain, either. Some part of him knew that he was not ok. The doll had taken a large bite out of his neck and he was bleeding, but for some reason, it seemed far away, as though it had happened to another person. Or rather, he was no longer connected to his body. He should be shocked that the room he was looking at was completely different from the room with the hanging dolls, but he was more relieved than anything. More than the carnivorous doll, he didn't want to see that boy anymore. He didn't want to look into those flat, piercing eyes. Eyes that could look into your soul with gleeful accuracy, and no sympathy or human empathy.

The smell was familiar, the smell of wood and age, but there was no scent of something rotting or dust. Though the smell of age was there, it was lessened. At first, Odin thought it was tempered by the cleanliness of the room, the fact that it was well maintained, but then realized that it was because the age itself was less. The wood that made up the room was lighter, not broken or rotted or faded. The wood was still old, though, but more like the place had been built decades ago, not centuries. Among the smell of wood were two other distinct smells, one sweet, the other hot and thick, the smell of food. Such a smell didn't belong in the old mansion that he had entered. It made him realize how hungry and cold he really was. The sweet smell was earthly, the smell of flowers, but not like cut roses. It was lighter and reminded Odin of the large cherry tree he had seen before he had entered the house.

The room was big. Not huge, but bigger than the workshop and the pit with the broken floor. IT was a bedroom. There were expensive touches to it, scrolls depicting beautiful watercolor scenes, a dresser made of thick, glossy wood. The flat floor wasn't wood, like he had thought at first, but made of tatami. The mats were softer than any other tatami that Odin had walked on before, obviously made differently. The colors of the room were different than what he had experienced so far in Japan, bright and lush. There were several toys about the room, but the space looked neat, unlike a usual child's room. A well-loved, bright red ball sitting in one corner caught his eye, but Odin wasn't sure why it seemed to draw him in, besides its color. There was a pretty little paper lantern that had tiny butterflies cut out of the paper, to make shapes when it was lit. It wasn't lit now, daylight streaming through one, circular window. Odin was more interested in the futon near the lantern, and the person laying in it.

His heart chilled. The boy with the long hair and the white kimono was there, his eyes closed, and a large amount of blankets wrapped around him. Odin thought of his gun again, but something stopped him from actually reaching for it. Something was wrong with all of this. Not just the lack of age or the different room, but the boy himself. His skin was still pale, but compared to the little boy that had looked up at him in the darkness of the pit room, it was flush with color, a light peach tone. His hair was mussed and sweaty, his face reddened. The blankets were up to his neck, so Odin couldn't tell if he would have those terrible cuts, but he didn't think so. The boy was breathing heavily, in whooshing pants, as though it were hard for him to take each breath. Odin easily saw the signs of a bad fever and seeing the boy's small chest, covered in blankets, rise and fall with each choked breath was painful. This boy... he wasn't the same as the other one. He was alive, vibrant, though ill. Odin didn't feel the chill and the fear that that other boy gave him, just a strong sense of sadness and regret.

Another boy walked to the little brunette's bed, kneeling down on his knees and regarding him tensely. He looked a few years older than the sick boy, his hair thick and a deep, dark brown. Odin would have guessed that, unlike the long haired boy, this boy was purely Japanese, if it weren't for his dark blue eyes. Given the expensive items of the room, Odin knew that the sick boy belonged to a wealthy family and noticed that the blue-eyed boy was probably a servant. He wore a very simple, dark blue yukata that wasn't poor or old, but not as luxurious as the next man who came into the room. He wore robes that Odin believed were close to Shinto, though he couldn't be sure, and looked very expensive. He was middle aged, his hair a dark grey, his eyes a light brown. He looked mostly European, with some Japanese thrown in. He walked with importance, a sense of power around him. However, when he looked down at the boy in the futon, his gaze seemed to soften with emotion. Odin thought that the man looked worried. The blue-eyed boy took the younger boy's hand in his, holding it lightly, clasped between his two tan ones.

"Teishu-san," he murmured and Odin realized that this boy was even more worried about the younger one than the man was.

The boy on the futon cracked open his eyes until they were half lidded. They, like the boy that had tormented Odin, were blue-violet, but they were prettier now. They weren't dark and flat, but lively. They looked hazy with fever, but he imagined that, in better health, they would be bright.

"Told you not to call me that, Heero," he rasped.

Heero smiled down at the boy apologetically. For a moment, Odin was struck by the softness and care in the boy's smile, a boy who seemed so quiet. That smile seemed so rare to him, as though he knew, somehow, that Heero was usually cold, focused, and stern, usually unmoved and uncaring towards other people. The type of person who cared only for duty, for what he had to do, and not so much why he had to do it. Odin could certainly understand that sort of personality.

"Duo," Heero corrected himself, "How are you feeling?"

The longhaired boy, Duo… it was almost strange to put a name to the child that had led him through the dark tunnel, who had no warmth or affection, who had, certainly, brought him to his death. It was even stranger to see that boy become relieved by Heero's touch and voice. Children were so often frightened by illness and a in a time when medicine wasn't so readily available or accurate, Duo had reason to be frightened, but seemed to trust the older boy. Duo was uncomfortable equating the feverish, scared little boy in front of him with the other one.

"… Hot," Duo whispered, his eyes slipping closed as though he didn't have the strength to keep them open anymore.

The man approached the two boys, his expression sharp and stern, not quite cold, but authoritative.

"Heero," he said and to Odin, his tone sounded more like a boss about to scold his employee than an adult addressing a child.

Heero turned, got on his knees again, and bowed deeply, but one of his hands did not leave Duo's, twisted and obviously uncomfortable by the new position. Still, he didn't let him go.

"Shujin-sama, (1)" Heero greeted.

The man gave Heero an appreciative nod, seeming to be both glad and unhappy with the blue-eyed boy's presence at Duo's bedside.

"You will leave now, Heero," the man ordered.

Heero seemed shocked by this, his deep blue eyes widening. He looked torn between not wanting to disrespect and disobey the man in front of him, and not wanting to disregard his personal and professional duty by leaving Duo.

"Matsuei-shujin… I don't understand what you are ordering me to do," he protested.

"You are to leave my son's room and not return for the time he is ill," Matsuei clarified, not upset at Heero's questioning.

"Duo needs me!" Heero argued heatedly, his fear of his master being overriden by his concern for his charge, "I'm his Guard, I have be here for him!"

"Precisely the reason why you must leave," Matsuei said coldly, "Duo will need you when he is well and you will not be of use if you are sick from his contagion. There is nothing you can do for him now that his nurse cannot."

Heero looked up Duo's father, his blue eyes piercing, but Odin could see that the boy was going to relent to the man's logic. He turned to Duo, that piercing look still there, but combined with a deep worry, an almost panic at the thought of leaving. Duo's face was slightly pinched, his breathing deeper from obvious stress from the heat of his fever. He picked up a cloth that was by the longhaired boy's bedding and dipped it in a basin of cold water. He seemed to have dismissed his master's presence, completely focused on the ill boy. He gently put the wet cloth on Duo's forehead, pushing back his long bangs. Duo moaned lightly in happiness at the feeling of cold. He opened his eyes blearily again and very weakly gripped the hem of Heero's yukata as it hung over the blue eyed boy's bent legs.

"Heero…" he begged breathlessly, "… don't go…"

Heero chewed on his lip, torn on what he should do, but managed a smile.

"I won't be gone long," he promised, "Listen to your nurse and you will be well again, soon. You can see me again, then. When you aren't contagious anymore, we'll watch the cherry blossoms together."

Duo pouted childishly, letting go of Heero's clothing.

"Don't want nurses," he whined, "You take care of me better."

Heero's smile grew and he patted Duo's head.

"I'll bring you something nice when you're better," he told him, "Just rest."

Duo looked away from him, anxious about something.

"Heero…" he murmured hesitantly, "What… what if I don't get better? If I die… what will happen to my family? What will happen to you?"

The child sounded honestly frightened and Odin puzzled over the twin looks of fear on Heero and Matsuei's face. Were they just afraid for Duo's life? Was he really that sick? Was that what had happened to him? Was that other boy a ghost? But, those cuts…

"Don't speak that way," Matsuei snapped at his son, "You have enfluenza, nothing more than that. Do not concern yourself with such questions."

Duo nodded, but there was a chill in the room, his question lingering in the air with a seriousness that Odin couldn't understand.

"You won't die," Heero said, his voice much softer and kinder than Matusei's, "Your father is right. You've been sick since yesterday and your nurse says you should be feeling better by tomorrow."

"I will die," the violet eyed boy murmured, so low that only Heero and Odin could hear, "I'll die… maybe not today… but I'll die."

The chill that was in the room settled around Odin's heart, gripping the organ. Those words weren't the words of a child scared of being sick. They were the words of someone who knew their own death, someone with terminal cancer or looking some terrible enemy in the face. Duo spoke with fact, not fear, and it made Odin feel sad and confused at the same time. Heero was looking at his charge like he was searching desperately for some comforting words, but couldn't think of any. The blonde assassin watched as Heero and Matsuei left the room, leaving Duo alone with his heavy breathing and look of resignation.

As though someone had flipped a switch, things changed. To his relief, the room was the same, but little things were different. The sun was gone, the light replaced with the lantern's flickering flame, casting tiny butterflies on the dark walls of the bedroom. The water basin by Duo's bed had been refilled at some point. There were several cups near it, all of them empty, a few tipped over. They smelled of tea, milk, and honey. The boy in the bed was still breathing with rasping pants, his eyes closed, but Odin didn't think he was asleep. The washcloth that Heero had put on his forehead had fallen to the side of the futon. Odin knelt down near Duo's head, studying him.

He just looked like a normal kid to him, but he knew that wasn't true. There was a strange sadness to the boy's expressions, an almost maturity and deep loneliness. Duo's chestnut bangs moved up and down from his heavy breaths. Everything was telling Odin that this wasn't real. This wasn't his time, not with the way these people acted and the clothes they wore. And yet, it was so vivid, so real. He felt as though, if he were to reach his hand out right now, he could touch those silky, sweat-soaked bangs. The door to the room slid open and Heero walked in, quietly closing the door behind him. Odin felt an odd relief at seeing him. For a moment, he wondered if the things he were feeling were really his feelings, that relief, feeling that Heero was naturally stern and cold… he shouldn't know or feel those things.

Still, he supposed it was logical. This wasn't his time and these images had to come from somewhere. Besides, Duo was all alone here, not even a nurse was sitting by his bedside. Shouldn't someone be watching him? He could easily imagine the little boy's loneliness. At his age, sitting alone with a fever had to be frightening. Though Heero had a white cloth wrapped around his nose and mouth, he didn't seem all that concerned about Matsuei's warning that Duo was contagious. The older boy was inexplicably carrying two boxes, a small white one and a large one wrapped with blue paper and a white bow. He put them down next to Duo's futon as he kneeled there. Duo really hadn't been sleeping and looked up at him, surprised by his presence. His eyes weren't glassy anymore and his face wasn't as red, his fever starting to fade.

"Heero?" he whispered, "Shouldn't be here…"

Heero shook his head.

"I was careful. With this," he pointed to the cloth, his voice slightly muffled by it, "and making sure your father wouldn't catch me. Besides, it's your birthday tomorrow."

Duo's eyes seemed to brighten and become more alert by his friend's presence, the fear becoming dull and distant.

"How old are you going to be anyway?" Heero teased.

"Eight!" Duo exclaimed proudly, then sobered, "Three more years," he murmured.

The second of energy diminished and darkness filled Heero's eyes, he looked pained. He fought a smile onto his face, though, and glanced at the boxes. Duo's gaze followed his and his mood seemed to improve again.

"Those mine?" he asked with shyness, as though he were afraid that Heero would take them away.

"Of course they are," Heero snorted, "Who else do I like enough to go into town and spend my money on?"

Duo's violet eyes widened, the flickering light catching the deep purple colors in his eyes.

"You got them in town?" he asked in shock, looking at the boxes like a unicorn had pranced into the room.

Heero nodded.

"Which is why you have to hide them from your father, alright?" he said.

Duo nodded seriously, but though gifts from town were obviously taboo for some reason, he still looked at them happily. What sort of place was this, Odin wondered. A prison? Heero helped Duo sit up, propping pillows under his back, and put the bigger box on his lap. Duo touched the blue paper lightly, marveling at it as though he had never seen a present wrapped that way in his life, or maybe he was just enthralled with the idea of something that was wrapped in town, away from the mansion that he was clearly imprisoned in. He slowly unwrapped the large box and opened the lid of the white package. When he saw what was inside, he squealed with delight that only a child could feel.

"Dolly!" he said happily.

Odin felt chilled and stood sharply, only to breathe in relief when the boy pulled out a stuffed bear, not the terrible, wooden doll. The teddy bear was a cute, beautiful, and expensive thing, reminding Odin of the Steif bears that he had seen as a child. It's fur was lush, a light chestnut, and it's eyes were two, blue-violet buttons. The bear was about a third of the size of the soon-to-be eight year old and was unadorned except for a bell tied above one of its feet by braided, red, satin strings. Duo wrapped his arms around it and hugged it tightly, snuggling against its soft fur, obviously in love with the bear already. Odin looked around and realized that Duo didn't have any stuffed animals at all among his toys. It made some sense. If Duo wasn't allowed toys from outside the mansion, unless someone in the house knew how to make stuffed animals, he wouldn't have any.

' 'Dolly'…' Odin suddenly realized, 'Was this what that boy wanted me to find? Was that why he was so angry when I showed him that wooden doll? Because he really wanted this teddy bear?'

Heero chuckled at Duo's excitement.

"Not a doll," he corrected, "Westerns call it a teddy bear."

His smile turned distant and slightly pained, lost in some memory.

"My father used to travel west. My mother came from the west and he enjoyed visiting her people. When he returned, he would often bring me one of these bears as a gift, since I couldn't travel with him," Heero told Duo, touching one of the bear's rounded ears.

Duo touched Heero's hand, his expression comforting and warm, sympathizing with the older boy's pain. Odin realized that, with Heero's pained look, his father was probably dead or had abandoned him.

"When he came back home with those bears," Heero murmured, "I was so happy," he gave Duo an affectionate look, "I wanted you to feel that, too, Teishu-san. I know you're lonely sometimes, and I can't be with you all the time, especially not when you have your sacred duties to perform."

For once, Duo didn't scold Heero for calling him teishu, simply hugging his bear tighter and nuzzling it. Heero continued to have an affectionate smile as he reached for the second box, happy that Duo liked his gift. Odin wondered at that. It looked like Duo's father was the head of this mansion, which meant that Duo was filthy rich, but he didn't act spoiled. The bear looked expensive, but not something that a rich boy would settle with, yet Duo looked so happy with it. Was he really that lonely, that he could be happy with a sincere gift from a friend, even if it was simple? Heero gave the box to Duo, who continued to keep the bear tucked in one arm.

"It's cheesecake with strawberries and sauce," Heero told him, "From the same shop I bought from during the Fall Festival. I remembered how much you loved it."

Duo opened the box with glee, finding a large piece of fresh, plain cheesecake, drizzled with sugary, strawberry sauce with slices of ripe strawberries on the side. Duo loved fruit, but strawberries and apples were his favorite. Again, Odin was struck with the impossibility of that knowledge, but was starting to let go of his confusion. He was starting to understand that, in this place, there wasn't anything that was outright impossible. If Duo's thoughts and knowledge was in his head, there wasn't anything he could do but accept it.

Or maybe it was this house. Maybe its memories of Duo were locked inside and it was broadcasting them, perverting Duo's ghost into something horrific, and remembering the people who had lived within, little, trivial facts about them. He didn't think that there were actual rules about hauntings. Odin watched, feeling like a voyeur at this point, as Heero fished a fork out of the tie around his yukata, handing it to Duo. Duo didn't seem to have much trouble holding the fork, but considering his European features, he was probably familiar with a few Western things.

"Share?" Duo asked Heero, his eyes large and pleading.

Heero looked torn. He knew that he would have to pull down the cloth and sharing food with Duo would increase the risk of him catching Duo's flu, but he wanted to make him happy. He steeled himself and nodded, Duo's immediate, beaming smile relaxing him. Heero found a tray of dishes on the other side of Duo's futon, which his nurse hadn't taken yet, and found a clean spoon that Duo should have used to eat his soup. Odin got an impression that Duo liked to drink his soup and not use a spoon, something that his father frowned upon. The two boys sat together and took small chunks out of the cheesecake, both looking content and happy, but Odin knew it wasn't just from the sweet desert.

Out in the hallway, Odin heard a creaking sound from someone walking close to the door. It was so like the creaking he had heard much, much earlier, above his head, that he almost flinched. A light came from under the door and both Duo and Heero held their breaths, but the light passed. Heero breathed with relief.

"I should go," Heero said mournfully.

They shared a sad look and Odin, who was far from prone to having sentimental feelings, nearly felt heartbroken about it. He wasn't sure if that was because of the supernatural forces, the same ones that were giving him these memories and impressions, or if the two boys really looked that lonely. The cheesecake was all gone and Heero gathered up the boxes and wrapping paper, eager to dispose of them before Duo's father saw them. He took the cloth he had wrapped around his mouth and tucked it into the belt of his yukata, no longer needing it. He put his hand on Duo's still hot forehead, but quickly removed it, smiling at him.

"Happy birthday, Duo," he murmured and started to walk towards the door.

"Heero!" Duo gasped after him, his sore throat making it impossible for him to speak very loudly.

Heero stopped and looked back at him, worried that Duo might be in pain, but his charge was smiling, hugging his present tightly.

"I love my bear," Duo said softly, his smile somehow shy and bright all at once.

Heero beamed back at him, then opened the sliding door, looking both ways to make sure the no one would see him coming out of Duo's room. He quietly left, closing the door behind him. Odin watched as Duo's happy expression fell as soon as the door closed, like a puppet whose strings had been brutally slashed. The little boy tugged his pillows until he was able to lay flat again, and curled up on his side. Clutching his bear tightly, his face still red and his pretty eyes starting to become wet with tears, he looked utterly miserable. The tears fell down his cheeks in thick torrents, tears of complete anguish, not just a temper tantrum. Tears that made Odin's heart ache. The boy buried his face in the bear's dark fur, but his thin shoulders continued to shake.

"I know I have to die," Duo said with shuddering breaths through his sobs, "I know… that's the only reason why I was I born at all. I told Heero that I wasn't scared, because it's something I have to do, but… even though I know it's something that I have to do… I'm scared… I lied… I'm so scared…"

The child sobbed heavily. The flickering of the lantern's candle seemed to sympathize with his sorrow, casting wild shadows and sharp light, although there was no wind in the bedroom to make it flicker this way and that. It reminded Odin of the trap door that hadn't been there one minute and had materialized the next. Something impossible, but so easily ignored or reasoned. Duo lifted his head and stared at his bear as though the bear was a living thing.

"Daddy says that it's going to hurt," he whispered at the stuffed animal, "And after, it'll hurt even worse, _and _it hurts forever. He says that the Darkness hurts and keeping it back is like getting ripped apart in every direction. I'll feel it always and always. It goes here," he pointed to the middle of his chest, not the left side where his heart really was, a childish mistake, "It wraps around you and shows you things. It finds the cracks in your heart and fills them and twists them and if you break, everyone dies."

Duo swallowed roughly, not wiping at his tears that dripped down his neck.

"If I'm not strong," he murmured, "Everyone will die. Heero, Mommy, Daddy, the town, and then, everyone else in the whole world. But I'm _not _strong. I'm a crybaby!" he said bitterly, "When I fall down or hurt myself, I always cry! How can I keep the Darkness back? I don't understand what I'm supposed to do! Daddy won't say, just "you'll know when you face it"! I'm not supposed to doubt or want anything. But… but I do… I don't want to fail and I don't want to go there, into that dark place, forever. I want to stay here, with Heero, and Mommy and Daddy. I… I don't want to die… Those feelings are bad. I'm special, I have to be stronger than anyone else. It's my duty. You'll keep the Darkness away, won't you, Teddy?" Duo pleaded, "You'll stop me from being afraid… the dark place is scary and full of monsters… but I have to face it… I have to… to be like Heero. Have to be strong… even if there are monsters…"

Duo's voice tapered off, starting to become weak from sickness and his stormy emotions. The boy's words were mature, speaking of a great responsibility, but his pleads to his teddy bear to make the monsters go away was so normally child-like, it was painful to listen to. Odin couldn't even begin to understand what he was talking about, but it sent chills through him. He had this sudden image of this little boy trapped someplace dark, filled with terrible things. The stuff of every child's nightmare. And his father was asking him to go there, without any doubt or fear, or they would all die. To put such a responsibility on the shoulders of an eight year old…

The coldness grew, filling his veins, like the coldness from before… there was that prickling feeling, too, and his head was on fire. He was going back, he realized with fear. He didn't want to. He wanted to stay here, where the ghost was just a sad child and the room looked new instead of ancient, smelling of hot food and the scent of flowers, not rot and dust. He knew what was waiting for him if he went back. He took the glock out of the back of his pants, even though he knew it wouldn't do him much good. He didn't fall this time. Odin could see the workshop under the bedroom, like a superimposed image, and as that feeling of cold increased, like a snake around his heart, the workshop seemed to seep into the room and filled it until the child and the walls filled with butterflies from the lantern disappeared completely. It was as though Hell had oozed through the wood.

He could feel sharply, while before he had only been dimly aware of it, the hot blood running down his neck again. His almost-healed bullet wound was soaking his shirt with blood, too, but he couldn't remember it reopening. With quick reflexes, Odin shot the doll the second he saw its shadowy form. The bullet struck the doll on the side of the face, some wood flying off in sharp shards. It fell to the floor again, but Odin didn't feel any relief, remembering how quickly it had gotten up last time. How did you kill a doll? Maybe with fire, but he didn't have any. And even then…

His killer instincts had the hair on the back of his neck rising, screaming at him that there was something else, something different in the room. He whirled at a flash of white in the corner of his eye, seeing a figure standing by the mirror wearing a pure, white kimono. The braid trailing down its back told him what he was looking at, even though the being wasn't a child. It's shoulders shook and Odin struggled to see its reflection in the mirror. He didn't want to get close to it. Still, he approached it slowly, stepping to the side so he could see its face.

In his teenage years, Duo had matured from an adorable child to a beautiful boy. This… specter was crying, just like the living child had been. This Duo, however, was very much dead. The ghost seemed transfixed with what Odin thought was his reflection in the mirror, still not able to see the mirror in its entirety, one bloodless hand pressed against the flat surface. Suddenly, those eerie violet eyes slid over to Odin, finally noticing him. Odin felt a shock from that, but not the fear he had felt in seeing the ghost child. There was something about this teenager that was terrible, but he didn't feel threatened for some reason.

"Murderer," the ghost accused bitterly, his voice distorted and raspy, sending more chills through the assassin.

Something prickled inside of him at the insult. In the past, he might have defended himself. He wasn't a killer. He did a job, that was all. Now, he realized that he had no words to deny that. He was a murderer. There were no shades of grey. The understanding in those dead eyes told him that. The ghost looked at his hidden reflection again.

"You're a murderer," the ghost murmured, "As I am."

Horrible things flashed through Odin's mind, each worse than the last. Five old men hanging from ropes wrapped around their necks. A little blonde girl, her small body stashed in a closet and slashed, as though by a bear or some other large predator. A beautiful woman with two blonde braids, her stomach ripped apart, like she had swallowed a bomb. Or something had tried to crawl out of her. A man, all skin and bones, mangled and covered in blood, holding the head of a woman. Birds feasting, tearing strips of remaining flesh off an unrecognizable, man-sized corpse. Odin grabbed at his pounding head, trying hard not to vomit.

"Stop it!" he screamed.

So many dead… it was as though this house had been built on the bones of so many corpses… and this boy was saying that he had done it. He couldn't believe it at first, that the sweet little boy that had cried, clutching a teddy bear, had killed anyone. But then, he remembered the flat-eyed child, peering at him through the darkness like a cat at a mouse, and he could believe it easily. The older ghost seemed unperturbed by Odin's screaming and his eyes fell on the doll, still lying on the floor in a heap.

Blue-violet eyes that had only been filled with sorrow became angry as he stared in contempt at the doll, almost like a bitter child. It made Odin realize that, though this Duo was clearly older than the one in the vision and the one that had been haunting him, he was still very young, too young. Those eyes were not the eyes of a living person. They were flat and haunted, not the eyes of a corpse, but filled with a sort of anguish that no living person could possibly feel, but seeing that irritation and bitterness directed towards the wooden doll, the ghost suddenly seemed shockingly, and paradoxically human. It was a freakish thing, a crime against nature and reality.

Odin followed Duo's heated gaze and watched in astonishment as the wood of the doll started to blacken, as though time was being sped up in some kind of pocket around the doll. It's wooden frame split and cracked, it's limbs making loud snapping sounds, the sound of bones breaking, as they splintered from some malevolent force. It was hideous and too easy to think of the doll as a living thing being tortured. It brought bad memories to Odin, of those rare times when he had had to 'persuade' people to give him information about his targets. For the first time in his life, guilt struck him. He understood it then, seeing that doll and remembering the terrible things the spirit had shown him. Duo wasn't just a ghost... he was a force of nature. Odin had sealed his own fate the second he had decided to come up here. He was going to die... just like all those people he had seen in his mind. He didn't know what was more terrifying, the pain he knew that he was going to experience in this lonely place, or how helpless he was to do anything about it.

Something bright flashed in Odin's vision and he got the impression of a sharp, biting cold like ice, then an intense heat. For a moment, he thought the room was on fire, then, the vision sharpened, like a camera coming into focus. There lanterns made of delicate, bright red paper, all lit and blinding to him. His vision was blurry, as though he were crying and he couldn't make out most of the room. Duo, as a child, was standing there next to Heero, whose back was as straight as a rod and looking stern. Duo's white kimono was plastered to him with water and he was shivering with cold. The kimono was no longer a pure white, but a dingy whitish-brown. His right arm was bandaged heavily and in a sling, obviously broken. His fingers on his left arm were bruised so deep, they were black. He looked like he was going to cry, but was holding back his tears.

In the far wall of the room was a small hearth that was lit, the flames casting an orange-red glow on the two boys. Matsuei and a woman stood by it, their expressions pinched with an irritation that only parents could express, about to scold a child for doing something forbidden. The woman was beautiful, just a head's shorter than Matsuei, her blonde hair done up in an elegant, oriental style, an ornamental hair comb in a flower pattern used to keep it pinned up. Her skin was almost as pale as Duo's was, her eyes a crystalline blue. Unlike Matsuei, she didn't have a drop of Japanese in her, looking mostly European, but she wore an elegant, long-sleeved kimono, a deep blue with pink sakura on it, the obi a contrasting orange. She stood elegantly, a woman of class and privilege, but didn't seem stuck up or arrogant. The way she looked at Duo, and the similar, pretty features of her face and the older ghost's easily told Odin that the woman was Duo's mother, Matsuei's wife.

Matsuei's expression was hard and cold, almost angry, though if he was, he seemed to have a great deal of control over it. When his brown eyes looked at Heero, the boy lowered his head in shame. While Duo was shivering from cold and pain, Heero was outright trembling with poorly repressed self-loathing and fear. Clutched in Matsuei's hand was Duo's bear, but it was as wet as Duo was, filthy with dirty water and algae. With a careless, almost cruel flick of his hand, he threw the bear into the fire.

"No!" Duo cried out in anguish, trying to run forward to save his precious toy, but Heero grabbed his good arm, keeping him back.

"Duo," his mother admonished, approaching him with a kind, but frustrated look, "It's ruined. You can't keep such a filthy thing."

In the fire, the bear's soft fur burned up quickly and the cloth curled and blackened. It's button eyes, covered in ash, seemed to gaze out of the flames accusingly.

"That's not why you're burning it!" Duo yelled angrily, "It was _my _teddy! I don't care if he was dirty, he was _mine_!"

"Your uncle can make you a new doll," she told him, her voice becoming sterner and Odin thought her tone was spiked with some fear, but he wasn't sure if that was fear of her own child or something else, "A better one. One that is more appropriate for you."

"I don't want one of Uncle's ugly dolls!" Duo screamed in a childish tantrum that was filled with true anguish, beyond simply a child wanting a toy, "I want my teddy! It was a gift, something special! I don't want anything else!"

Panic and a dark fear came over his mother's expression, turning her pretty face into something ugly. She struck him, open handed, across his face. Duo looked up at her in shock, unable to believe that his mother had hit him, but his tears seemed frozen, brimming in his eyes. She knelt down and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him harshly. Duo's eyes squeezed shut as the shaking hurt his arm.

"You cannot talk in such a way!" she demanded harshly, "Do you understand me, Duo? You are the mirror sacrifice, you can never have such thoughts, such selfish desires! It is wrong and you will turn your mind from such foolishness at once!"

Something indescribable and just as ugly as the look on his mother's face came over the boy. Odin thought that it was hate.

Just as quickly as the vision had come to him, it was gone and he was back in the workshop. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, hoping to keep the visions away, but he knew that it had nothing to do with his sight. The older ghost was still there and it was looking into the mirror again, it's hand flat on the surface.

"Murderer," the ghost accused his reflection and Odin felt something sharp dig deep into his heart.

Suddenly, as though a cloud had lifted, Odin could see into the mirror. He could see Duo's reflection. But... it wasn't really his reflection. At a glance, it could be, but Odin was close enough to see the truth. It was the same size and shape as Duo, the same long, chestnut hair and blood splashed, white kimono. It's eyes were different, though. The same shade of violet, but darker in their expression. They weren't haunted, but filled with malice. There was no regret, no sorrow there, but a kind of glee, as though this reflection was watching Duo's pain and hearing his accusation of murderer and finding pleasure in it. There was a cruel smile on its pale lips, promising something horrible. Just staring at those eyes and that smile was maddening, but the thing that caught Odin's eye, the thing that made him realize that this was no reflection, but a gateway to some dark place, where the things coming out of its back.

They seemed to move in and out of visibility, or more likely, in and out of reality. Some were pale and almost translucent while others were so solid, he felt that he could reach out and touch them. All of them terrible, disfigured, specters that mimicked humanity enough to mock it, all screaming and writhing, some in pain, some in laughter. He got glimpses of bony finger and sharpened teeth, dead eyes and exposed bones, strings of flesh clinging to the bone. The Duo on this side, out of the mirror, seemed transfixed by the apparition on the other side of the glass. A single tear trailed down his left cheek and dropped from the corner of his jaw, but disappeared in the air, as though it had evaporated. Again, Odin thought of rips of time.

It was nearly impossible to think that this boy had killed anyone with such a sorrowful, self-hating expression, but the thing in the mirror… that thing was a killer. It was in its eyes, not just the capacity to take a life, but a love for it. Odin had met enough fellow assassins that had a taste for blood to see it clearly. He took a step back, though every reasonable thought told him that running would do him no good. Not now. Duo had marked them both as murderers, but there was no companionship in that group. He knew that the thing in the mirror was just toying with him, biding its time. Sooner or later, it would rip him to shreds.

But then, there was Duo. Odin was smart enough to understand what he was seeing. A mirror, splitting a blood-thirsty ghost from one filled with anguish and remorse, like a barrier between the good and the bad. Every human on the face of the earth had at least two sides of them. It was the balance between them that made you who you were, compelled to do bad, or compelled to do good. For some reason that he couldn't begin to understand, in this place, this boy's soul, his balance between good and bad, had become something physical. If that were true, if that thing in the mirror was just Duo's rage and desire to do violence, then couldn't the Duo on this side be able to sway the monstrous side?

If he could convince the ghost that he wasn't a murderer, that there was some good in both of them, maybe he would let him live. That concept was like grasping at straws, like trying to turn air into a solid, but he had nothing left. Either grasp at that impossibility or accept the fact that he was about to die, something that his mind couldn't do. But… but even if all that was true, that he could put his life in the hands of a dead boy who had killed who knew how many others and walk away from all of this intact, how? He had seen Duo as a child, a little boy who had only wanted his teddy bear and to spend time with his best friend. This thing in front of him was just an echo, a shell of that person.

And how was he any better? If anything, he was worse than this ghost who had terrorized him for who knew how many hours, how many days. He had killed because he was good at it and had arrogantly assumed that that was the only thing that mattered. If you were good at something, you did it, because it was an easy way to make it in the world. He had never felt regret. He had never felt blood lust, either, but remembering that little boy that had cried into his stuffed bear, he felt an overwhelming sense of shame. Blood lust or not, he was a murderer and this shadow of a human held more regret than he ever had.

Somewhere, that little boy still existed, those regrets and that self-hatred still lingering, frozen in time. If you regretted your actions that much, you make yourself better. Here Odin had been, thinking about giving up his life as an assassin, not because he hated what he did, but because he had started to like it, when he should have given it up years ago. It had taken being a hit himself, hunted by rage and a desire to hurt, to make him see what a pathetic person he really was. Duo had been a lonely, scared boy once, and had felt a deep love for his only friend. Those memories told him that. And those feelings made him human. But, a small voice inside of him asked, didn't those feelings and that humanity make his ghost all the more terrifying?

"I can change," Odin protested, his voice sounding oddly meek as he looked at the strange reflection, "The both of us can."

Duo turned to face him and as he did, he seemed to melt away, replaced by the thing in the mirror. Those two images of him, the one with tears in his eyes and the one with the eerie smile, seemed to switch places. Odin, shocked by the sight of those evil, distorted apparitions growing out of the ghost's back and how close the spirit was to him, stumbled backwards, falling, then scrambling back to his feet. In the small workshop, there was nowhere to run or hide to. Violet eyes ripped through his soul, making his head and chest pound with a sharp pain. The wood under the ghost's feet started to rot, cracking like the doll had.

Looking into those flat eyes, Odin suddenly realized his foolish mistake. This… thing was not a reflection of the boy he had seen in those memories. It wasn't just a part of his anger, having died so young. It was evil and dark and rage, all twisted up with something horrific. If it held a part of Duo's soul, then that soul was mad, gone insane and had only the desire to destroy everything in its path, like cancer, just growing and growing… It couldn't be reasoned with. It couldn't be stopped. It couldn't even be rationalized. It was like a rabid dog, pained and crazy, but a mad dog that could think and change the very space around it. The ghost smirked at him, a cruel, superior expression.

_"Is that what you believe?" _it asked, mocking.

A shudder tore through Odin's body. The ghost's voice was so much worse than the child's or Duo's. It was the sound of breaking glass, of a warped record, of fingernails clawing down a blackboard. It could barely be labeled as speech, yet Odin could understand what it had asked. Hearing that voice, those words, the whole room felt still as though death had descended on everything. It made him feel like carving out his veins.

_"No one changes," _the spirit sneered, it's voice on the edge of laughter.

_It was like hearing the voice of God telling him some ultimate truth that only it could know and understand. There were no words to refute such a thing._

_"There is only this," _it placed one pale hand over its heart, if it had one, and Odin wasn't sure if it did, and dug its fingers into the white cloth.

To Odin's shock, the blood that marred the kimono spread towards that hand and the ghost's cold smile grew.

__

"There is only the darkness inside the human heart, the things you cannot speak of, but is rooted there. Doubt, sadness, regret, hatred…"

it chuckled a parody of human laughter, like it had heard it before but had never really tried to mimic it until now, and looked back towards the mirror.

The Duo in the mirror had nothing growing out of his back, but the back of his kimono was shredded, the worst of the blood coming from there. The cuts in the white cloth showed Odin glimpses of Duo's bare back. The skin there was slashed to ribbons, all bloody and raw, deep cuts to the bone. He had seen his fair share of horrible things, but the sight of those wounds made his stomach turn. The ghost in front of him regarded him again, contempt for Odin's presence clear behind its sinister grin and Odin realized that its glance at Duo had been a barb, everything it had been saying meant to hurt the other spirit, not Odin.

_"The only thing that is real_," it said, its smile vanishing and the ghosts rooted to its back quivering in what Odin thought was anticipation, _"… is the darkness." ___

_"You can't kill what's already dead," _was his last coherent thought that wasn't filled with agony.

The female ghost's bony, cold fingers dug into his shoulder like icy tree branches as those piranha-teeth buried themselves into his neck, right where the puppet had bit him, but this was nothing like the puppet. These teeth weren't made of chips of wood. They were sharper than knives, longer than the doll's and unlike the doll, he had nothing to grab and fling off of him. Her top teeth and bottom teeth connected and, if those teeth had been solid and human, they would have made a loud clicking noise, but there was only silence as she ripped open his neck, blood gushing down his chest in an unpleasant, wet warmth. The sound of his screaming in the hollow room sounded strange, but he didn't have the luxury of wondering why as more of the parasitic ghosts surrounded him, like jackals at a carcass.

A ghost that he couldn't see buried its face into his stomach and started to feed, gorging on his flesh and filling Odin with overwhelming pain as he realized that it had reached his organs. Two python-like demon-like spirits wrapped around his arms and squeezed, like steel wire. The last thing he heard before he bled out was his shoulder bones popping and snapping, like the sound of the bones of a chicken wing being pulled back, as the serpents ripped his arms from his body and he fell to the floor in a wet, grisly mess. Blood pooled on the wood floor, soaking his blonde hair. His blue eyes looked ahead at the corner where the child was crouched watching all of this with flat eyes, Odin's eyes holding the same expressionless look. The ghosts feeding on him returned to their master, still hungry for living flesh, but they were no longer interested in the assassin's body as his heart stilled.

The Darkness looked down at the body with coldness and distaste, but also with some satisfaction, its pupils like twin beads of blackness against the violet. The smell of death mixed with the smell of rot and age, a familiar mixture in the mansion. The old wood creaked, as though it were groaning, in either pain or glee. The child suddenly appeared at the Darkness' side and grabbed at his kimono, tugging at it like a child trying to get the attention of a parent. It smiled down at him affectionately, putting one scarred hand on the top of his head.

"I want my dolly," the child whined.

The Darkness stroked his hair lightly with all of the gentleness of a mother.

"You can't have your dolly," it said.

The child bit his lip and looked like he was on the verge of a temper tantrum.

"Why not?" it asked with childish curiosity.

"Because it's gone forever," the Darkness looked down at the corpse again, "Your bear is never coming back. So many things... they will never come back..." it murmured, but it held no sadness, no regret, only amusement.

The Darkness smiled at the child again.

"Don't worry," it soothed, "I'll find you better dolls to play with."

"You promise?" the child asked with a small sniff.

Its smile grew from affection to malice.

"Don't I always find you play things?" it asked, almost sneering with cruelty.

The child nodded happily, smiling up innocently at the demonic spirit. Someday soon... he would get to play again. The Darkness always knew the best games.

The parasitic ghosts darted forward, though they remained rooted to the ghost's back, as fast as striking snakes. Odin had a moment to wonder who was feeding off of whom, before he grabbed his gun from the back of his pants. He aimed his gun at one translucent horror, something that looked like a woman, her clothing barely recognizable as a kimono that hung open, just barely hiding her small breasts. Her mouth was sliced wide open, showing off a piranha-like maw and the complete absence of a tongue, her pale skin splashed with blood. Her chest had been slashed apart, the cavity open and naked, her ribs dangling out and reminding Odin of the wooden planks of the wall in this room, curling out. She only had flesh dangling in that cavity, what he thought were lungs, but he couldn't see her heart. From her waist down was serpentine and trailing back towards the ring leader of the horde. As she darted to him, his gun fell from lax fingers and he wondered why he had bothered to pull it out at all.

October 13, 1888

Hiiro (2) struggled to keep up with his shujin as they walked across the walkway above the servants' quarters that was barely used, but his nine year old legs were too short to really do much but chase after him. They had come here by going down the steps and into the door on the wall that none of the servants were supposed to go through, up some more stairs and into this narrow walkway, like a tunnel that was above instead of below. The tunnel-bridge was made of crisscrossed wood, like a cage, and had a triangular roof. Light streamed from the square gaps in the wood, but Matsuei-shujin carried the ornamental red lantern in his hand, casting an eerie red light in the shadowed tunnel.

The lighting of the shujin's sacred lanterns, which only he was allowed to light and carry, was only done during special ceremonies, like today. The Day of Meeting was one of the most sacred traditions that the Matsuei had and it overwhelmed Hiiro to be a part of it, even if he had been training most of his life for it. The Day of Meeting was usually performed in the night, so the use of the sacred lantern was important, but his teishu was frightened by the dark, so they were holding it during the day this time. Hiiro had been born into the role of Mirror Guardian, as his teishu had been born to be the Shattered Mirror Sacrifice. His father had been a Guardian, or Hoshoga, as well, for the previous Mirror Sacrifice, but he was gone now and all Hiiro had had to look forward to was this day.

He wondered what his teishu would be like. Hiiro had heard his father speak of his mistress many times. She had been the Shujin's older sister, a beautiful woman named Kyoko. She, like Hiiro's teishu, had been first born. It was tradition for the first born of the Matsuei family to be labeled as Sacrifice, or Gisei, as it was traditional for the head of the family to sire another child once the Shattering Ritual was completed. According to the books that Hiiro had studied, it was so the second child was not tainted with the pain of the sacrifice. So, Matsuei-shujin had never met his elder sister, but Hiiro's father had praised her, even though he had spoken about her with a great sadness. Hiiro wondered if he, too, would speak of his teishu with that sadness five years from now. Five years was not a large amount of time for a servant, but he would serve his teishu with honor and respect, no matter the time.

When he hadn't been training for Hoshoga, Hiiro had been a plain servant, washing floors, cleaning dishes, and tending to the other various members of the lower Matsuei families. The mansion was divided by the lower family and the higher family, the higher family being the one that owned this mansion and Nasue, the one that was in charge of the rituals and tending to the house. The higher family had their own, select servants and the lower family and its servants were not allowed on that part of the mansion. Hiiro had known that this was the day he would be leaving the lower family forever without knowing the date when he had been presented with the soft, dark blue yukata that he wore now, instead of his drab, worn servant's clothes.

They finished walking through the bridge and Mastuei led him into the higher house. Servants, wearing dark red yukata, the color of the higher family, bustled about, holding trays filled with expensive, breakfast food, and cleaning the walls to a shine. All of the doors to the rooms were open, a warm air rushing through the hall from open windows. This part of the house was beautiful, everything seemed to shine compared to the lower house. It made Hiiro worry that he should have brought a gift to his teishu.

Hiiro's previous station had been far below even the servants he saw here, and his teishu was the Matsuei's only son… he should shower him with praise and presents, especially since today was his birthday. But, the dark blue he wore marked him as a servant only to the Gisei. He was only below his teishu and Matsuei-shujin, all the servants here had to listen to him. It was a strange thing, after living his life scrubbing at floors and being bossed around by older servants. His teachings told him that it wasn't traditional to bring the Gisei gifts, that he, himself was the gift, but he still wished that he had access to his father's leavings so he had been able to buy something in the village. He wasn't allowed any earnings, let alone his father's, until today. Matsuei stopped in the front foyer, right before the door leading to the front of the house and the large gate.

"Your father was a loyal Hoshoga to my sister," Matsuei said, regarding Hiiro with a piercing gaze, "I expect nothing less from his son."

Hiiro slid to his knees and bowed low, his forehead almost touching the floor.

"I will do justice to the Yui name and serve the Gisei loyally, always, Shujin-sama," Hiiro vowed.

Matsuei nodded, starting to turn to go, then paused. Hiiro returned to his feet.

"You will find that my son is a very simple boy," Matsuei informed him, "He does not require, nor rejoice expensive, lavish gifts."

Hiiro blushed a little, realizing that Matsuei had seen through his nervousness.

"What _does _Duo-sama like?" Hiiro demanded boldly as Matsuei started to leave him.

He flinched as his master turned and stared at him again, expecting to be struck for daring to speak to the man. To his shock, Matsuei gave him a small, approving small.

"My son likes flowers," he said simply, then continued to walk, leaving Hiiro in the foyer.

Hiiro kept that information in mind as he steeled himself to go outside, where his teishu was waiting for him. His knowledge of the lifestyles of wealthy people had been limited to the stories his father had told him of his trips abroad and of serving the Matsuei head family, and the members of the lower family that Hiiro had served. They had always commanded the best out of everything, with expensive and exotic tastes. That his teishu would enjoy something so simple was a relief at the same time that it was odd.

It was warm out, but not hot or humid as it had been for the last few days. It was a good omen, Hiiro thought, as the wind brushed his face. There were no bothersome mosquitoes or beetles, either. The blooming sakura tree in the front yard was beautiful against the back drop of the clear blue sky. Standing underneath the tree was a woman that Hiiro recognized as Matsuei-shujin's wife, Helen-aijin (3). He had only met her twice, once when she had come to oversee his studies with Matsuei when he had been very, very young, as was tradition, again later at the wedding of one of Helen-aijin's personal, servant girls, which had been held in the higher courtyard. Helen-aijin was easily recognizable, even from the back, having a stunning beauty like the queens from western fairy tales. Her eyes were blue, lighter than Hiiro's, which was rare in Japan, but even rarer was her hair, the color of daffodils and gold, wavy, falling just to her shoulders.

This time, however, Hiiro's attention was focused, not on his mistress, but on the child with her, who was crouched, balanced on feet, his knees bent, but not touching the ground, poking around the stone garden that had been created underneath the tree's protective branches. If he had not already been aware that Matsuei's child was a boy, the long braid that dangled between where his shoulder blades would be would have made Hiiro mistake the child for a girl. The shade of the tree, and Hiiro's distance, kept the color of that hair a mystery, but he was mesmerized simply by the style of the hair.

He had never seen a braid before. He knew what it was from his father's tales of woman in the west, who enjoyed tying their long hair up in the most elaborate fashions, but most of the servant girls in the mansion kept their hair short, to keep out of the way of preparing food and the hard task of cleaning so many floors in the giant mansion. Those that did have long hair kept it tucked in clothes wrapped around their heads. A few of the Matsuei women had long, black hair, but kept them up in the current style: a simple bun on the top of their heads, kept their by ornamental chopsticks or combs. He had seen a few geisha in the village wearing their beautiful, glossy black hair in such a style. It was pretty and elegant, but boring compared to the way this boy's long, straight strands were tucked and twisted around each other, like ribbons of silk or the vines of a willow tree when the wind was violent.

Helen-aijin noticed his presence and turned to address him, with a slight nod of her head. Though she was not his master and he would never have to take orders from her, she was far from a servant and he bowed lowly in respect. She walked out from under the sakura, her steps elegant. She was as poised in her blue kimono as any of the native born Matsuei women, though Hiiro knew that she had been born far west, in Germany. Her child followed after her, though he had to nearly run just to keep up with his mother. When the boy realized that Hiiro was present, he hid behind his mother, his little hands grasping at her kimono. He reminded Hiiro of the little, yellow ducklings that he saw every summer in the swamp, swimming behind their mother, scrambling to keep up with her.

The boy, though obviously shy, peeked around his mother and stared at Hiiro in curiosity. Hiiro was startled by the appearance of the boy. From his father, he had learned that Kyoko had been a Japanese beauty with almond shaped, black eyes, straight black hair that fell about her waist, and skin the color of cream. With that image, he had thought it only right that his teishu would have the same features. He supposed it was his mother's doing, but Hiiro could see no Japanese in the boy. His long bangs fell in his face, hair like the sun, red and gold, but with also a light, chestnut brown. His skin was pale, like milk, the skin of a boy who had spent most of his life indoors, being cared for, and not toiling in the sun as Hiiro's tan skin was.

The most incredible, though, was his eyes. They were a deep blue, tinged with violet and indigo, giving them a very dimensional look. They were the eyes of Irish fairies, beautiful, but dangerous in their alluring strangeness. Helen finally realized that her son was using her as a shield and chuckled, placing a comforting hand on his head. When those violet eyes turned from Hiiro to his mother, Hiiro felt a strange loss.

"Now, now," she soothed, "Don't be frightened. This is your Hoshoga. He will be your best friend and with you always."

Hiiro wondered why the boy would be frightened of him. No one in this village would dare to ever lay a hand on him. If he were allowed to walk through Nasue, he would treated as a prince, given the respect of every man, woman, and child. No… he would revered as a God, and in his way, this child was. A God that could walk among men as their savior and would, in time, truly have the responsibilities of such a deity. To harm Matsuei's first born would be to do harm to one's self. Only a fool would think of it. Surely, this boy realized that, had known it from habit, that he was forever safe. Yet, he seemed skittish now, like a rabbit.

But, even though he looked scared, he also had a strange expression as his mother mentioned Hiiro being his best friend. He looked… lonely. Hiiro understood the feeling. For eight years of his life, it had only been his father and him. They had shared a room in the servant's quarters together, a room bigger and more opulent than the others because of his father's status as a previous Hoshoga. After the sacrifice of his father's Gisei, he had been given a large amount of money for his services, and had spent some of it traveling. The Hoshoga, like the Gisei, was not supposed to leave Nasue during their service, but was free to do whatever they wished after the sacrifice.

His father had always seemed lonely, too, and had talked about Kyoko often, having a far off, sad look in his eyes. Hiiro had heard the other servants whisper about him, saying that he was a wretched, cursed soul. They said that his father had not loved his mother, but had slept with her to ease his loneliness over Kyoko's death, who had been his true love. Silly, romantic things that bored servants liked to speculate about. Hiiro was sensible, even at nine years old, and he didn't protest such speculation on his father's behalf because he couldn't deny that it might be the truth.

Now, he understood a part of his father's loneliness, having been left alone, to care for himself. Some of the other servant women had tried to take them in as their own, finding the next Hoshoga to be a lucrative position, a way to boost their reputation, only to find that Hiiro was responsible and had no desire to find another parent. Perhaps it was childish, but he had no yearning to be mothered, only wishing that his father was still with him. Compared to the love he had had for his father, nothing seemed to match it. He had always been responsible, since his father had gone on frequent trips, especially during the summer months, but Hiiro had never felt truly lonely until he had found himself alone, and hating his father for his selfishness.

He couldn't understand why Matsuei's son would seem that lonely. Didn't he have servants and cousins to play with? Hiiro and the other servant children on the lower side didn't have time to play with each other, and knowing Hiiro's role, the other children had stayed far from him, leaving him to his important studies. His teishu, however, was wealthy and could order the servant children to play anything and anytime that he wished. He had relatives catering to his every whim, yet he looked at Hiiro with such curiosity, as though he had heard of the term 'friend', but had never really experienced it before. Helen patted her child on the back.

"Go on, then, Duo-chan," she urged.

Duo, it was a strange name for a child, but the boy himself was strange. He shuffled out from behind his mother, starting to come out of his shyness. Outside of Natsue, Duo's attire would have seemed strange to anyone, but here, he was easily recognizable as the Gisei. The kimono he wore was odd, meant for a girl and not a boy, the sleeves missing, like the kimonos that the prostitutes wore, to entice men, but the stark whiteness of the kimono was more somber than seductive. The kimono was traditional, worn by every Gisei since the first one. In his studies, Hiiro had read of the first Gisei, a fifteen year old girl, the only daughter of the Matsuei clan, named Reiko.

Local folklore told of a terrible darkness that had descended on Natsue from the mountain that the mansion had been built upon, unleashing evil in the hearts of every villager. Within just a year, that evil spread through the surrounding villages and everyone there died horrible deaths, the very land tainted with calamity.  
Shinto priests came to the Nasue mountains, but none of their prayers and sacrifices appeased the evil and many of them parished or were driven insane by the darkness. Then, a priestess named Matsuei Reiko came upon the town. She was rumored to have a great, psychic power and upon coming to the mountains where the evil had been unleashed, had a vision.

Reiko told the priests that only one with a great spiritual gift could seal the darkness and that they would have to be sacrificed every eleven years, or it would spread again and more calamity would fall, not just on Nasue, but on the entire world. Reiko fought with the darkness, which tore her kimono and harmed her, but her power was able to force it back into where it came. Then, her father, who had accompanied her, sacrificed her, and the darkness was locked away for eleven more years. The next year, her mother gave birth to a boy and the clan's line continued. The priests believed that the first born of every generation of that family would be blessed with Reiko's gift and every eleven years since, the darkness had not returned.

The kimono that Duo wore was the same style and color that Reiko had worn, the belief being that her sacrifice had to be repeated in the same way. It was a strange coincidence that the obi was the color of his eyes, as though it had been an act of fate or destiny. Of all the generations of Matsuei sacrifices, only three, including Duo, had been born male. The Matsuei had seen Duo's birth as a good omen, believing that the male sacrifices were stronger and better able to perform the ritual than the females. The six year old peered up at Hiiro inquisitively.

"Are you really my Hoshoga?" he asked, still a little bit shy.

Hiiro bowed for him like he had Matsuei, on his knees, his head nearly touching the earth.

"Teishu-sama," he said respectively, "I accept my duty as hoshoga, to serve you honorably and loyally, for the rest of my life and yours."

Hiiro was completely unprepared when Duo, instead of dismissing or acknowledging his vow, smiled at him and extended his hand. Hiiro was awestruck for a moment, so used to the sternness of the Matsuei clan and the lessons that had been drilled in him since birth, to always be respectful, to never look a Matsuei in the eye unless he had been spoken to… but his teishu was regarding him simply as another child, a friend or playmate instead of a servant. His lessons told him to rise on his own or keep bowed, but he remembered his one true purpose: to serve the Gisei and always do what was best for him. He took the younger boy's hand, allowing him to help him to his feet. Helen was smiling approvingly at the both of them and bowed slightly to Hiiro, who bowed back, and left the two children alone.

"I'm Duo," the chestnut haired boy said, his smile suddenly bright and lacking all shyness.

In that moment, when the shyness left him, despite the white kimono he wore, Hiiro had a heard time seeing him as anything else except for another child. Wasn't he supposed to introduce himself as Hiiro's master? That was the proper greeting, and surely Duo had been trained as Hiiro had been. But he was acting so familiar, far from proper.

"H-Hiiro, teishu-san," he greeted with a stammer.

His training had not prepared him for this, what he should do after their greeting. He knew how to act and what he would need to do to tend to his master, but nothing more than this. He was unprepared for Duo's sudden pout.

"Not teishu," he whined, "_Du-o_."

Hiiro found himself smirking at Duo's candor and was startled by his own reaction. He was not the sort of child to find amusement in such things, or to smile that often, but this boy was so open, so trusting and informal, that it was hard to remain cold or clinical towards him. He was not at all what Hiiro had been expecting.

"I apologize, teishu," he began, as his training dictated he should.

"DUO," the younger boy demanded, "Why do you have to call me teishu, anyway?"

"Because it is proper," Hiiro argued, "You are teishu, my master. To call you anything less, as a servant, would be rude."

Duo cocked his head to the side and Hiiro was distracted by his long braid falling over his slight shoulder. For a westerner, Duo was very thin and delicate looking, shorter than Hiiro had been at that age.

"But… my name is Duo," Duo argued back, his mindset truly that of a westerner, either not understanding the customs Hiiro had grown up with or just didn't find them necessary, "Not Teishu. My parents call me Duo, nothing else," he suddenly got a sly look in his violet eyes, "If you're my hoshoga, then you have to do whatever I say, right?"

Hiiro found himself biting back a grin and felt relief that Duo did indeed know about their positions. His boldness was so different from his earlier shyness and his Japanese was perfect, having grown up in Nasue, but his manner of speaking was foreign, showing an intelligence gifted upon the wealthy. Duo probably had dozens of tutors.

"Yes, Duo-san," Hiiro relented.

Duo huffed at the 'san', his breath ruffling his long bangs, but conceded.

"Is it true that we have to sleep in the same room?" Duo asked and Hiiro could tell that his teishu would be a fountain of endless questions.

"Yes," he said, "I must be with you at all times, to better tend to you."

Duo bent in the grass and Hiiro almost scolded him about getting his white kimono dirty, but Duo had been well trained and only bent low enough to pick up a rock without his kimono touching the ground. It was a skill that geisha and women of the higher class were taught.

"Why?" Duo asked as he examined the rock in his hand, which was perfectly round and a milky red color, "I can't leave the mansion, and all my meals are brought to me. What is it that you are to do?"

"I am to make sure that you perform your duties as Gisei," Hiiro informed him, watching as Duo rolled the palm-sized stone in his hand, "I am your companion, your friend. If there is anything you need, I will give it to you."

Duo looked up at him through his bangs, that shyness returning.

"What if I need to tell you something, something that I don't wish my father or mother to know?" he asked quietly, "What if I need something that this house cannot provide, or my father will frown upon?"

"Anything you need," Hiiro repeated, this time with conviction, "I will give you. You are my charge, I am your guardian. Your needs, and your needs alone, are my only concern."

Duo tossed the rock in the air and caught it.

"What if it's something that you're not supposed to do? If I told you to get me something in town or disobey my father, would you do it?" he asked.

Hiiro fidgeted, uncomfortable with the strange question. Duo, as Gisei, was not allowed to leave the mansion and in turn, he was not allowed access to anything from outside. He was supposed to remain pure, in body as well as in mind. If his mind strayed from his duties, even for a moment, his effectiveness as Gisei might lessen. One who has ties to the living world, who desires things outside of their station, could not be a Gisei. And Matsuei was the head of the household… but his duty was to Duo, not to Matsuei.

"I would, if you asked me to do it," Hiiro said nervously.

"I won't," Duo whispered, looking down at the rock, and the older boy felt an incredible relief, "I won't ask anything that you don't want."

Hiiro watched, perplexed, as Duo walked back over to the stone garden.

"You could," he pointed out, "I can't disobey you."

"I know," the longhaired boy said, kneeling to inspect the stones, "But… you said you're supposed to be my friend. Friends don't bully each other. My father says that I am not allowed things from the village, so I will never ask that of you. It wouldn't be fair. I don't want a guardian, I want a friend."

Hiiro shook his head.

"You have many friends, I'm sure," he said, "I am the only hoshoga for you, though."

Duo looked back at him and Hiiro's heart tightened at the look of sadness there, that shouldn't belong to such a bright child. Duo looked back at the garden, his back to Hiiro and the Japanese boy wished he could see his eyes.

"No one wants to be friends with someone who is going to die," Duo murmured.

Hiiro felt a sharp pain in his chest. He had forgotten, for a moment, inexplicably, just who Duo was, and what was going to happen to him in five years. Hiiro approached him, knowing what he should say, but not wanting to, even though it was his duty to.

"It is your duty," he said, wincing at his own words, "If you do not perform the ritual-,"

"I know," Duo interrupted, but his tone wasn't angry, "If I don't die, then everyone else will. Mother, Father, you… I know that and I know why none of my cousins want to play with me, because the dead shouldn't play with the living."

That statement furthered the pain in Hiiro's heart. He wanted to protest that Duo wasn't dead, not yet, but those words seemed hollow. This boy in front of him would never be a teenager, would never grow old or even hit puberty. It was necessary, but still strange, knowing that he was talking to someone who would die in such a short time. And the way he was going to die…

"I know what has to happen to me," Duo said, placing his red rock near some grey and black ones, "I know its necessary and that its my fate to die, but I'm not afraid. I have to die so so many can live. I don't mind dying. I just want to protect my family and this town."

He stood and turned to Hiiro, who was shocked to see a smile on the violet eyed boy's face. This boy truly was blessed with an abundance of spirit and kindness, fitting of the Mirror Sacrifice, one who loves the world and therefore is willing to be sacrificed for it… Hiiro had been raised to do his duty, so it was easy for him to say that he would do the same, but he wasn't sure if, on that day, he could let his own family kill him…

"I must throw away all connections to this world," Duo said, looking up at the sakura tree, "I must sever the connections to my parents, my family, but… I think…" his violet eyes met Hiiro's blue ones, "I think it would be nice to have one friend…" his smile turned into one filled with devastating sadness, "… It's lonely…"

Hiiro remembered his own loneliness after his father had gone and walked to Duo, taking his hand in his. Compared to his own, Duo's hand was small and as thin as his bare arms. The longhaired boy didn't shy away from his touch, his pale fingers wrapping around Hiiro's tan ones. Hiiro looked down at the stone garden that the younger boy had been fussing with. The stones were all round and mostly black and dark grey, arranged in meticulous circles and various patterns, the way that the flowers in the courtyard were arranged. The cold stones were somehow beautiful and the red stone that Duo had placed stood out brilliantly. It was like a drop of blood or a flower petal against starkness. It was so much like Duo, he thought. Those violet eyes, his bright smile… he was like a red gem among dull, black rocks.

"I am your hoshoga," Hiiro said simply, "I'll always watch over you and protect you, even from loneliness."

That promise felt more important than his vow to serve. He tugged lightly on Duo's hand.

"Come on, I want to show you something," he urged.

Duo let Hiiro lead him back into the house and didn't protest, even when they crossed the bridge to the lower house. Hiiro knew that Duo had never been to this side, if he had, the servants would have been gossiping about it for years, but to his knowledge, he didn't know if Duo wasn't allowed. He was the son of the head of the household, he couldn't imagine that Duo couldn't go somewhere in the house. He had no intention of any servants seeing the boy, so he didn't worry about Duo being here or causing a stir. Duo kept up with him easily and Hiiro didn't see it, but Duo was smiling warmly as he followed the older boy through the house.

Hiiro snuck through the servants' quarters, feeling like a thief in the night with the way they waited at corners for servants to leave so they could pass without notice, but Duo seemed to enjoy it. This was probably the boy's first attempt at hiding and playing, if he hadn't any friends before now. He didn't think that Duo's parents were the sort to play such games with him and he had probably spent most of his time alone or with his studies. Hiiro continued to lead him, liking the feeling of Duo's warm, slender hand in his, until they reached the lower courtyard.

It was not as beautiful as the higher courtyard where hundreds of flowers and trees bloomed, but it was well kept by the servants. It was small, with just two trees: one sakura and one cedar. Most of the plants that grew here were weeds and vines, but pretty ones. There was tall grass under the cedar tree and, as they approached the tree, Hiiro pointed to it.

"Here, pull that back," he told him.

Duo looked at him warily, as though he were expecting him to play some trick on him, while all this time he had allowed Hiiro to lead him, which made Hiiro curious.

"You'll like it, I promise," he smiled.

Duo knelt down and pushed the grass apart. His wary look slowly grew into one of wonder and delight as he saw, by the side of the wall behind the tree, grew a small bush of red tea roses.

"Pretty," he said in awe, reaching out to touch a silken petal, then looked at Hiiro, "How?"

Tea roses did not grow naturally in Japan, and until he had found this bush, Hiiro had never seen a rose before, but Duo, having a mother and family members who came from Europe, probably had. Still, Duo looked at the flowers in absolute wonder, making Hiiro feel relieved and confident, having chosen correctly after hearing Matsuei's advice about his son liking flowers.

"One of your distant cousins planted them some years ago," Hiiro told him with a small, pleased smile, "This is alien soil to them, but they have thrived nonetheless."

Duo knelt in the grass, his careful training forgotten and he kneeled like a child would, on his knees. Hiiro no longer felt an urge to scold him as those bright eyes studied the roses. He dug around in his yukata for the little knife he kept there for housework and reached out, cutting three rose-heads from the bush, above any thorns. Duo watched with wide eyes as Hiiro placed the delicate, crimson flowers in his hands. Duo cupped his hands around the petals, clearly enjoying the color against his pale skin and the feel of the soft petals.

"Happy birthday, Duo-sama," Hiiro said.

Duo stared at him for a moment, then smiled, but this smile was gentle and, Hiiro dared to think, affectionate.

"Thank you, Heero," he said softly.

Hiiro touched his cupped hand.

"It might be your fate to die, but for as long as you are alive, we will be together, forever. There is nothing you can do or say to get rid of me. We're friends for life," Hiiro promised.

"You promise?" Duo asked in a near whisper.

Hiiro nodded. Duo cradled the roses in one hand to his chest and reached out to Hiiro with his other, one pinky extended.

"Promise," Duo urged and his voice sounded so desperate and needy to Hiiro, a sad little boy yearning for some companionship.

Hiiro hooked his pinky with his charge's.

"We will always be together," he vowed.

End Part 2

(1) Ok, so as I've said before, Duo is Heero's master in that, basically, Heero is his servant, although Duo doesn't see him that way. Heero refers to him as teishu, which means master. Shujin also means master and the difference between the two is splitting hairs, but there is a difference. Teishu translates to master, host, and landlord. As the head of the household's only son, Duo is, technically, these three things for Heero. Shujin means head, proprietor, employer, master, and landlord. This describes Matsuei, Duo's father, more than Duo. He is the head of the household and Heero's employer, since he gives Heero his wages, a place to stay, and has ordered him to care for Duo. While Heero has to do what Duo says, Duo isn't the one employing him. While it isn't necessary for Heero to call Duo and Matsuei different honoraries, it makes it less confusing about who he is referring to.

(2) From this point on, Duo's best friend and mirror guard is written as Hiiro, while the one in the present is spelled Heero, to avoid confusion.

(3) Aijin is mistress


End file.
